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Gearing up for Firefox 3

Posted on June 8, 2008 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under: Announcements, Reviews

There's been a lot of hype towards Firefox 3 lately. The new version of our most popular browser has been in development for quite some time, and is due for release in June. For those of you that aren't aware of Firefox yet, it's an alternative web browser to Internet Explorer, that is released under a free Open Source licensing model (basically meaning anyone can help in developing it, fixing bugs, translation, or artwork, unlike proprietary software which is kept behind closed doors). Many people have already switched to Firefox for numerous reasons, such as tabbed browsing, integrated search, it's much faster, supports better web standards, a wealth of extensions, but most importantly protection from Spyware and other Internet threats and scams, or just the fact that it is Open Source.

Sadly, a lot of people only tend to hear about Firefox, after suffering from a really badly Spyware infested computer and taking it into a technician, getting it cleaned and being recommended Firefox as a preventative measure for the future, together with a decent Spyware removal program. These sort of trends are happening all over the world, we are not the only ones raving about Firefox. Firefox is continuing to show a rise in popularity and there are still no signs of slowing down. Firefox usage is now almost at 20% worldwide, however some countries such as Germany are much higher than that.

Firefox 3 is currently in Release Candidate stages, which means it's "almost" complete, but not quite. Firefox 3 is so stable though, a lot of people have found it more stable than Firefox 2 and are already happily running the Release Candidate now, despite it not even being finished. The latest version of the Ubuntu operating system, already has made a bold move to include Firefox 3 as it's default browser, despite it not even being finished yet, and it runs extremely well (I use Ubuntu as my primary operating system). Firefox 3 includes hundreds of new features and over 14,000 15,000 bug fixes and improvements. Rather than re-listing them here, I thought I would link to this screencast video.

Getting Firefox in the Guinness Book of Records

There's currently a campaign going on, led by the team at spreadfirefox.com, to try and get a record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours, on the day Firefox 3 is going to be released. The campaign is called "Firefox download day 2008" and you can already pledge to download it now, more information can be found on the Firefox download day website. Let's see if we can increase the number of downloads for New Zealand.

Update: Mozilla have just announced today, that the final release date for Firefox 3 will be June 17, at the time of writing that is only 5 days to go!

Update: Firefox 3 has now been released, go to the Mozilla Website and download it now. Apparently it was downloaded so many times the download server crashed at some point, but is back online now, that comes to show the immense popularity of Firefox. I had a look at the download counter, and it's already up to 2.9 million downloads in less than a day! At current, it's being downloaded at about 4600 times per minute, that's insane! I just checked it again an hour later, and it's now over 4 million downloads going steady at over 10,000 downloads a minute, that's absolutely amazing, Firefox has to be the most popular open source project ever.

Edit: spreadfirefox.com doesn't exist anymore, but getfirefox.com is it's replacement.

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Free Training in Foundation Engineering

Posted on September 25, 2007 by: Shane Maru
Filed under: Announcements

Free Training in Foundation Engineering.

46 Week Course, Start and Finish whenever you like Although we do have a starting date in January and a finish date in December.

Students are more than welcome to roll over into the new year, etc.

National Certificate in Employment Skills
National Certificate in Manufacturing & Mechanical Engineering
NZS4711 Welding Ticket
Travel Allowance
Quality Training
Placement into Work Experience
We will help find you Employment
Placement into a Modern Apprenticeship

MOST OF ALL THIS IS FREE TRAINING!!
Our course is the same as what Weltec would provide but obviously you would
need to get a student loan in order to attend the course at Weltec!

For more information contact Crystal on 04-564-2326 or call/sms
027-345-7091.

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IBM releases it’s Lotus Symphony office suite for free

Posted on September 20, 2007 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under: Reviews

EDIT: Lotus Symphony no longer exists, please check out Libre Office instead.

As the title says, IBM has just released it's new office suite, Lotus Symphony free of charge. When I first read about this announcement myself, it brought back memories of IBM's classic "Lotus Smart Suite 9.5" office package, which was often installed when you brought your Windows 98 based PC. Sadly Lotus Smart Suite slowly faded away as Microsoft Office started to gain popularity, and is now virtually unheard of anymore.

IBM Lotus Symphony on the other hand, is something completely different, it's actually based on the popular free Open Office office suite. So basically "under the hood" it's still Open Office, with a fresh new look and additional features added by IBM. The good thing also, is that IBM is donating a lot of it's changes back into Open Office, so IBM is also helping Open Office along in the process. Lotus Symphony is available both for Windows as well as Linux.

Being based on Open Office, it also uses the popular Open Document file format (ODT), a free and open document standard that is now shared between many other office suites. You can still import your Microsoft Word DOC files off course, and export to DOC format too. One of the big advantages of using open standard document formats such as Open Document, is because the specification to the format is open, your documents are guaranteed to still be readable by software 20-30 years from now, which closed source formats/software cannot always guarantee.

Have a look at the screenshots if you like, on the Lotus Symphony website, or download it if you want to try it out. If you already have Microsoft Office installed, don't worry, you can run both programs on one PC no problem.

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Jobs 4 Teens

Posted on July 19, 2007 by: Shane Maru
Filed under: Reviews

Jobs 4 Teens is a dedicated online interactive job center where New Zealand teenagers can find work in their area.

Whether you are looking for a part-time job or have a part-time job to advertise, Jobs 4 Teenz is the place to reach committed teenagers right across the country willing to fill roles to earn themselves some money.

To take advantage of Jobs 4 Teens search for jobs now or Contact Us to advertise your position with us and enjoy success today!

UPDATE: It seems this website no longer exists, links to the site have been removed, however they seem to have a Facebook Page.

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A Try Feast Against Marist St Pats

Posted on July 16, 2007 by: Shane Maru
Filed under: Reviews

Wainuiomata Rugby Football Club (Inc):

Press Release Number: 16/2007.
Date: 15th July 2007.

The Wainuiomata Auto Auctions Premier team played its best rugby of the season and thumped Marist St Pats by 57 points to 0. Dominating all facets of the game the team lead by 22 points to 0 playing into the wind. A forward pack which outplayed its opposition enabled the backs to play with flair and all of the nine tries scored were by backs.

Try scorers were Lewis Marshall with 3 tries, Geoff Gilsenan with 2 tries, Feterika Sage, Uale Mai, John Monu and Te Aonui Ririnui a try each. John Monu converted 2 tries and Earl Va’a converted 4 tries.

Player of the day was Norm Faaaliga.

This week our Premiers play Northern United at William Jones Park at 3.00 pm, – support from the community would be appreciated for our Wainuiomata Premier team.

In other results the Building World ITM under 21 team lost to Oriental Rongotai by 10 points to 22 and the Clives Chemist Shop Senior 3rd team had its first loss of the season, losing to Petone by 10 points to 18. Try scorers for the Senior 3rd team were Robert Leota and Lepaio Sola with Paul Gale being the player of the day.

The Trevor Mallards Under 85kg Weightwatchers game was cancelled due to bad ground conditions.

The 12d Presidents team lost to Petone by a large margin.

(Peter Jones)
Phone 527-3204
Email pjjonsey@xtra.co.nz

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A return to the winning post

Posted on July 9, 2007 by: Shane Maru
Filed under: Reviews

Wainuiomata Rugby Football Club (Inc):

Press Release Number: 05/2007.
Date: 08th July 2007.

The Wainuiomata Auto Auctions Premier team returned to the winning post with a well deserved 23 points to 13 win over Avalon. Playing with the win in the first half the team dominated in all phases of play and lead by 20 points to 3.

In the second half in difficult conditions the Wainuiomata team kept out a well spirited Avalon team to deserve their victory. Our local All Black and inspirational player Piri Weepu scored one try, converted two and slotted three penalties. The other try scorer was Feterika Sage.

The team was well lead by Ati Olive who deserved his player of the day award.

This week our Premiers play Marist St Pats at the Evans Bay Park at 1.15pm, – support from the community would be appreciated for our Wainuiomata Premier team.

The Clives Chemist Shop Senior 3rd team remained unbeaten with a 27 points to 5 victory over Avalon to remain on the top of their points table and are in fact the only unbeaten senior team in all of the Wellington Rugby Union grades. This is a credit to the players, but especially to their Coach/Manager Nick Domonkos. Try scorers were Trevor Bull, Satini Lealana, Alfred Lepou, Winston Va’auli and Michael Williams. Bana Lio converted one of the tries and was the player of the day.

The Trevor Mallards Under 85kg Weightwatchers had a bye and the Building World ITM under 21 game was cancelled due to bad ground conditions.

The 12d Presidents team lost to Hutt Old Boys Marist by 17 points to 0, but the player of the day was Scott Sargent due to blistering pace and aggressive play at the contact area.

The Wainuiomata Times Womans team were out played by Johnsonville by 65 points to 0.

In other news it was good to see that Corey Draper, Feterika Sage and Ben Tupuola have made the Wellington Rugby Union Colts team with our Club Coaching Co-ordinator Chris Stirling being the head coach. We wish them well for their representative commitments.

In addition during the week the Club obtained the necessary funds to revamp its current indoor training facilities located at William Jones Park. The sawdust is going to be removed and replaced with an artificial surface as well as the current lighting being replaced. This project is going to cost in excess of $53,000.00 but will mean that the Club will have the best indoor training facilities in Wellington. Work on this project will commence once the current rugby season is completed.

(Peter Jones)
Chairman
Phone 527-3204
Email pjjonsey@xtra.co.nz

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Firefox 1.5 users advised to upgrade to Firefox 2.0

Posted on July 6, 2007 by: Rob van der Linde
Filed under: Announcements

After cleaning a lot of clients PC's from Spyware over the years, we have guided a lot of people in using Firefox, as a safer, alternative web browser, to help keep new Spyware from reinstalling after removal.

In the past, we have setup Firefox 1.5 on a lot of people's PC's (which was the latest version at that time). The reason I am mentioning this now, is because Firefox 1.5 has reached it's end-of-service life, 6 months after Firefox 2.0's release, and Mozilla will not be releasing any more security updates for that version. Clients are advised to download the latest version of Firefox, uninstall the older Firefox 1.5, and install the newer version.

To check out what version of Firefox you are running, click the Help menu, then click About Mozilla Firefox. The version number is just underneath the Firefox name.

Fore those readers that are not familiar with Firefox yet, Firefox is a free (as in Open Source free), easy-to-use alternative web browser that makes it much safer end enjoyable to browse the web. When you use Firefox, you don't have to constantly worry about the possibility of getting infected with Spyware. However, installing Firefox alone will only prevent most new Spyware from automatically installing. It is advised to clean out Spyware infested PC's first (we can do this for you if you want), then start using Firefox from then on to prevent future infections, and start enjoying a much better, safer browsing experience. For help on how you can combat the Spyware problem, come and talk to us.

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