Opera Alpha 9.5 release codenamed Kestrel

It's a year in the making but an Alpha version is now available for download. Kestrel has improved rendering of webpages, increased font-rendering speed, faster and less memory intensive and a more responsive user interface.

Welcome to the Opera Browser 9.5 alpha release - codenamed Kestrel. For your everyday browsing, please continue to use 9.23, the latest version of Opera's free and award-winning browser. This release is all about you: we want to hear what you think about it, what we did right and what we didn't and how we can make it even better for our beta and final releases.

Opera Alpha 9.5

Microsoft Releases Silverlight 1.0

Microsoft today released to the Web (RTW) Silverlight™ 1.0, a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering richer user experiences on the Web. In addition, Microsoft will work with Novell Inc. to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, called Moonlight, and based on the project started on mono-project.com.

Silverlight significantly reduces development and deployment costs and provides enhanced Web audio and video streaming and playback using industry-leading Windows Media® Technologies. Microsoft unveiled new Silverlight customer experiences on “Entertainment Tonight,” HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment, and also launched the Silverlight Partner Initiative, a program designed to foster collaboration among solution providers, content delivery networks, tools vendors and design agencies.

Microsoft Press Release

Acunetix Launches Free Cross Site Scripting Security Scanner

Acunetix today launched a free edition of its popular web vulnerability scanner, which allows companies to check for cross site scripting vulnerabilities in their websites at no charge. The Free Edition of Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner (WVS) is available immediately at http://www.acunetix.com/cross-site-scripting/scanner.htm.

What is Cross Site Scripting?
Cross Site Scripting allows an attacker to embed malicious JavaScript, VBScript, ActiveX, HTML, or Flash into a vulnerable dynamic page to fool the user, executing the script on his machine in order to gather data. The use of XSS might compromise private information, manipulate or steal cookies, create requests that can be mistaken for those of a
valid user, or execute malicious code on the end-user systems. The data is usually formatted as a hyperlink containing malicious content and which is distributed over any possible means on the internet. Cross site scripting vulnerabilities are extremely dangerous and the number of the attacks is on the rise. More information about Cross Site Scripting can be found at http://www.acunetix.com/websitesecurity/cr...e-scripting.htm

Acunetix

Apple to announce HDD-less iPods...

Apple will tomorrow unveil revamped iPods - the first without a hard drive - and iPod Nanos at an event to be held tomorrow, if the leaks and rumours of the last few weeks prove accurate. Observers are expecting Apple to take the wraps off a new iPod with a design derived not from past versions of the player but from the iPhone. It appears to be the long-awaited widescreen video-centric iPod, with a big display, touchscreen control, Wi-Fi connectivity and Flash storage in place of a hard drive - as predicted in February this year.

Quite what that will do the player's storage capacity remains unclear at this stage. Certainly, even 32GB of Flash will cost rather more than a 30GB hard drive, for all Apple's billion-dollar deals with Flash suppliers.

RegHardware

VirtualDub 1.7.3.28191

VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Changelog

[features added]
* Added display option for showing display debugging info.
* Frame rate adjustment can now be entered exactly, including as a rational fraction.
* Jobs can now be reloaded for tweaking.
* Capture: Added several options for fine-tuning timing issues with DirectShow-based capture drivers.
* D3D: Improved bicubic algorithm for ps1.1+ capable cards.
* D3DFX: Extended annotation and semantics support -- see help for details.
* Hex editor: Now supports drag and drop. [ View full releases notes ]

Home Page

Pixillion 1.00

Pixillion image file conversion software is a free image format converter for Windows. It can convert image files between gif, jpg, png, pdf and more. Before converting your file Pixillion allows you to view the image within the application as well as displaying the current file parameters. With Pixillion you can quickly and easily convert your image files into formats you need to host on web sites, reduce file size for sending via email or storing on a CD as well as quickly convert to the image format needed for other software applications. Designed to be very easy and intuitive to use, Pixillion will have you converting your images within minutes.

Features

* Converts between gif, jpg, pdf, png and bmp.
* Output encoder options for jpg and pdf alow you to select the quality output.
* PDF encoding has the extra option of choosing between page formats of A4, Letter or Legal.
* Load images directly from a CD or Windows folder.
* View your images and format information before converting.
* Integrates with Express Burn to save your photos and images to CD or DVD.
* Pixillion can be added to your right click menu for easy access.
* Pixillion is completely free.

Home Page

Indian Firm Touts "Alternative Internet"

Indian technology firm NetAlter Software has unveiled details of what it claims is a virus and spam-free "internet alternative". According to the company, it has patented a "true P2P" system that offers a domain-less alternative to the web and the internet. The NetAlter system will "offer a secure, trusted, spam-free and virus-free software and network for end users and businesses". Users wishing to access the network will have to use the NetAlter Service Browser, available free to end users worldwide, enabling them to connect, communicate and share with other users from their PCs via a P2P network.

"Users will no longer have to worry about their personal and financial information being hacked or misused as the NetAlter browser will not allow unauthorised programs to run and will protect the intellectual property of creators of content and applications," NetAlter claimed. The network will provide features such as email, file sharing, information sharing and messaging, as well as allowing the creation of personal and business networks. "Wherever you are, by simply installing the NetAlter browser on your PC, you can publish content across the network without registering a domain name or hosting a web server."

vnunet.com