For those of you operating a Windows-mobile powered device, this day promises not to disappoint.  For, you see, Opera decided to release the latest version of their eagerly-anticipated (and what seemed to be indefinitely-delayed) mobile Web browser.  The beta is a free download but will most likely require the purchase of a registration upon it’s final release.  (The last version of Opera Mobile cost about $30…and wasn’t that good.  Granted, it was still better than any version of Internet Explorer Mobile but that’s not saying much.  This version trumps the last one and I’ll most likely be willing to purchase it to improve the Windows-mobile Web browsing experience any way I can.)

Improvements over the last version (v8.65) include performance enhancements, pan & zoom browsing (remarkable and very iPhone-esque), Web standards compliance and the ability to save Web pages and/or images to your phone.

Try it out and I think you’ll agree that it’s definitely the best Windows-mobile based browser out there…at least until Mozilla officially enters the market.

Source: http://www.opera.com/products/mobile

That’s right, the entire feature film.  This is a classic, people…go watch it now.

Hulu.com, which we’ve covered before, is a joint-venture between NBC & Fox providing viewers with clips and full-length episodes of your favorite TV shows in addition to movie clips and/or feature-length films.

DesignFTP is a new site that allows you to easily, very easily, embed code on a page which will allow your users to upload large files to a folder on your site using FTP credentials.

Once you provide the service with your FTP host, username and password (yet another trust issue presented in the Web 2.0 world), you’re presented with one line of HTML which you can then embed on any page you’d like.

That code, once processed, displays a quick and easy upload feature with which a user can select multiple files for upload.

You not only have the option of being notified by E-mail when an upload occurs but, after publishing the upload script to your site, you can then begin tracking upload statistics via the DesignFTP control panel as shown below.

Overall, it’s a great tool for those with no experience in scripting their own upload elements or even little knowledge in seeking out and implementing already-existing PHP/ASP/etc. upload scripts.

It’s an invite-only beta right now but we got our invitation in about 24 hours so you may not have to wait too long before seeing yours.

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but one of the first things I do when I get to work is pull up my home computer via Remote Desktop in Windows.  This way I have access to all of my files, applications and I typically leave Outlook open at home all day long so that I also have access to the mail from about a dozen different E-mail accounts that Outlook is pulling down via POP or IMAP.

For years now, I’ve been using a service called DynDNS to disguise my difficult-to-remember, dynamically assigned Comcast IP address into something I can remember…something like: myname.dyndns.org.  (They have other domain name options, too.)  The software that controls my router easily integrates with DynDNS so that whenever I log onto a Windows machine (any Windows machine with Remote Desktop installed - which is just about all of them*) all I have to do is type in that address and I can instantly connect to my home computer.

Up until now, however, I’ve been manually updating my DynDNS account online whenever Comcast decides to change my IP address.  That changed today when I found the DynDNS Updater application for Windows. 

Acting as an application launched at startup or even as a native Windows service, the updater will automatically detect any IP address changes from my ISP and update my DynDNS account so that I never have to worry about not being able to connect to myname.dyndns.org if, by chance, my Internet service goes out while I’m away from the house.  (It seems like I always knew DynDNS offered this type of application but I only found out for sure today.)

The account at DynDNS is completely free, as is the Updater app so I highly recommend you check it out: http://www.dyndns.com.

Of course, Remote Desktop is only one of many possible applications for using the DynDNS service.  For instance, you could use the DynDNS service (in conjunction with a lightweight Web server like VertrigoServ or XAMPP) to host your own Web site and subsequently provide your users with an easy-to-remember address.

In addition, there are also some other similar services out there so if any of our readers have any recommendations, feel free to share them via the comments.

I came across an article on an MSDN blog detailing a modification you can apply from within Windows XP or Vista in order to speed your Outlook start-up time.  Navigate to C: > Users > Your Username > AppData > Local > Microsoft > Outlook on Windows Vista or C: > Documents and Settings > Your Username > Local Settings > Application Data > Microsoft > Outlook in Windows XP and rename your "extend.dat" file to "extend.old." 

Outlook will essentially repair itself upon its next launch and recreate an extend.dat file - this should significantly reduce your start-up times.

Note, there’s no guarantee this will fix all types of slow start-up times for Outlook 2003 or 2007.  There could be plenty of other causes including a limited amount of RAM, an abundantly large personal files folder (.PST) and/or a bloated or corrupted add-in.

Source: Sundara Prabu via MSDN Blogs

Since Firefox 3 was first released to the public in alpha status, many have enjoyed the new bookmark tagging feature which allows you to not only bookmark your favorite sites but also organize them using tags like many modern online bookmarking services.  In fact, this new feature has even given people the desire to migrate their existing data from the del.icio.us bookmarking service into Firefox.

Delicious allows you to export your bookmarks to an HTML file and while the file does include your various tags, Firefox 3 does not allow tags to be imported via an HTML file.  Instead, the browser uses the .json data interchange format to deal with tags.  So, up until now, I’ve been able import my del.icio.us bookmarks into Firefox via HTML but the many different tags I’ve assigned using the del.icio.us service were NOT imported.

Fortunately, the latest release of Flock, the social browser we’ve covered before, can act as a transition tool to allow for the type of import you want.  Flock, by default, automatically merges del.icio.us bookmarks with your own local bookmarks (including tags) when you engage one of Flock’s "social" features and login to the Delicious service.

Now, as you may have read, the Flock 2.0 beta was released today.  This release finally uses the Firefox 3 code-base thus enabling Flock to use the same bookmarking system (for the most part) as Firefox.  So, if you enable the Delicious service from within Flock 2.0, you can then export your bookmarks to a .json file once Flock has finished integrating them with your local bookmarks.  (Note, this can take more than a few hours depending on the amount of bookmarks you have stored on the del.icio.us service.)  To do this, open up the Favorites Library by going to Favorites > Organize Bookmarks from within Flock 2.0.  (You’ll notice an interface similar to that of the Firefox 3 bookmarks library.)

From there, select the "Import and Backup" option from the main menu and save the .json file to any directory you’d like.

Now, open up Firefox 3 and head over to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks.  From the main menu, select Import & Backup > Restore > File:

Find the .json file in your file explorer and import the contents.  Once Firefox is finished importing your bookmarks, the tags section over in the navigation area will now contain the entire list of tags you’ve created/assigned through del.icio.us:

Now, normally in Firefox 3 or Flock, you could click on one of those tags and any bookmarks related to that tag would then be displayed over in the left-hand side.  What’s strange, and something I’ve yet to figure out, is that the bookmarks DON’T display in the area on the left when selecting a tag in the nav area.  However, when you type in a tag or a keyword relating to a site you’ve bookmarked from inside the location bar (a.k.a. "awesomebar" or "address bar") in the main Firefox window, the appropriate results display:

Regardless, your favorite sites are now discoverable from within Firefox even if the situation isn’t 100% conventional.  You should also note that, with this scenario, an HTML export of your bookmarks from within Firefox doesn’t perform properly.  A .json export and restore (like we did above) does, however, work properly but you end up with the exact same result…no visible bookmarks in the Bookmarks Manager.

Anyway, it’s a temporary solution if you’re wanting to migrate your data.  If you have any other suggestions or solutions, feel free to contact us (suggest *at* fansoftech *dot* com) or drop a comment below.

Update: the fine individuals at e-accent.com have created a site dedicated to this very idea: http://delicious.e-accent.com.

Basically, you backup your current bookmarks from Firefox (to the .json format.)  Then, you export your current bookmarks from http://del.icio.us (with tags).  Once you have those two files, you can merge them together with e-accent’s tool and the site will generate a .json file that you simply import into Firefox 3.

It worked like a charm for me but I did notice that I needed to un-check the "notes" option when exporting from the Delicious site in order for the e-accent tool to generate a proper merged .json file.  Now, I have all of my del.icio.us bookmarks WITH tags inside Firefox. 

I’ll now be using Mozilla’s Weave Firefox add-on to synchronize these bookmarks with my other machines.  I’m already using Weave to synchronize browser cookies and passwords so this conversion just allows me to rid myself of one extra extension that I have to keep up with when re-installing Firefox on any of my machines.

If you’re a frequent user of Microsoft Outlook 2002 or 2003, you may have already stumbled upon and gotten used to having the Personal Folders Backup utility.  The 2mb download installs as an add-in to Outlook and allows you to backup your Personal Folders File (.PST) with just a click or two.  It’s quite convenient and the team behind it has finally updated it to be compatible with Outlook 2007.

Download the Personal Folders Backup Add-In here or read more about it on the Microsoft Office Outlook help site.

As an alternative, you can also use the (much more powerful) Amic Email Backup from Amic Tools. This freeware application not only allows you to backup the E-mail & calendar(s) stored in your PST but also backs up your mail and newsgroup account settings in addition to message rules, blocked senders and signatures. (Basically, everything in Outlook that you’d want to back up.)  In addition, you can schedule automated backups because, let’s face it, manual just doesn’t cut it.

Source: — Rob Sealock via MSDN Blogs

Just over two months ago, we were among the first to bring attention to a preview version of the del.icio.us extension designed to be compatible with the latest release (3.0) of the Firefox web browser.

Five days ago, the Del.icio.us team announced and subsequently delivered the final version of that extension to the official Mozilla Firefox add-ons repository.  Be sure to check out the official blog post from the del.icio.us team detailing all the new features in the release: "Firefox 3, Delicious and You."

Overall, the extension provides a great way to keep your bookmarks (with tags and notes, too) synchronized on each of your computers and, of course, on your http://del.icio.us account.

(FoT Tip: If you’re a nut for synchronization, you should also check out the Mozilla Weave extension for Firefox.  In addition to bookmark synchronization, Weave also allows you to sync stored passwords, cookies, browser history and saved form data.  Check out what we had to say about that a couple of weeks ago.)

Microsoft devotees shouldn’t feel left out as the team has also announced and released a beta version of an add-on for Internet Explorer.

Passpack, the online username and password manager, just announced the 6th version of their initial beta release.

Passpack stands above its competition by offering *multiple* levels of security including a master password and packing key (which can both be multiple words or entire sentences for additional security) in addition to a verification phrase and automatic session time-outs.

For each entry you create (see figure 1 below), you have multiple options for details including: username, password, URL, notes, tags and associated email address.

Figure 1: New account entry

When you’ve added your existing accounts via the online application’s import feature or via manual creation, finding the entry from the main entries listing (see figure 2 below) couldn’t be easier.  The "find-as-you-type" search box offers extremely fast discovery of your account information.

Once you’ve found the account you’re looking for, click on it and then click on the "scrambled" password field.  Voila!  Your password is automatically copied to the clipboard.

Figure 2: PassPack master entries listing

You also have the option of creating an auto-login bookmarklet.  Clicking on said bookmarklet while at a site for which you have credentials stored in PassPack will automatically log you in to that site.

At the moment, I’m currently unable to save any modifications in the Beta 6 release so you may want to stick with the Beta 5 release for now.  (The 6th release was just presented to users today, May 31,  so it’s most likely just a temporary problem.)  That said, I’ve been using Passpack for about a half-year now and I honestly would be lost without it.  I’m comforted by the application’s multiple levels of security…and the level of convenience of having all of my account information in one place is priceless.  Previously, I used the portable version of the KeePass password manager stored on a flash drive.  (I’m loving the fact that I no longer have to constantly keep track of that tiny drive anymore.)

Once the beta period is complete, free accounts will be limited to 400 (this could change) account entries.  From what I can tell, the company plans to monetize the service by offering advanced accounts capable of handling MORE than 400 accounts.  (Hey, apparently I’ll need one.)

If you’re interested in learning more about the service (and the company behind it), I strongly encourage you to check out their official blog: http://passpack.wordpress.com.  There are numerous articles on the blog providing details on features offered by the service and there’s also some great discussions on security.

One last thing, Passpack offers you an option to carry your data elsewhere by providing an export option alongside the import option you’ll most likely be using when creating your initial account at Passpack.com.

pixelnovel this past week released a version of the FlickrShop plugin for Photoshop.  The plugin allows you to bypass several manual steps and upload your photos/creations directly to your Flickr account from within Photoshop.

In addition, you’re also able to specify which format in which you want your file saved (PNG or JPG), add titles/descriptions/tags, choose which set in which you want it saved and even mark the image as public or private.

The plugin, priced at $19.95, has been available for Mac users for quite some time now and you can find both versions on the pixelnovel site: http://pixelnovel.com/flickrshop.