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Paint.NET is a freeware graphics editing tool.
Changes:
* New effect: Glow
* New effect: Bulge
* New effect: Polar Inversion
* New effect: Tile Reflection
* New effect: Twist
* Updated system requirements
* Fixed nub selection for Line/Curve and Move tools where the cursor would sometimes affect the wrong nub when zoomed in
Miranda IM is a smaller, faster, easier instant messenger with support for multiple protocols. Miranda IM is designed to be resource efficient and easy to use while still providing many features including support for AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, and more. You can extend it with hundreds of plugins to do almost anything you want.
Enhancements:
* Unicode support was introduced
* Database can store the Unicode strings (in utf8 format), and save and return these strings as ANSI, UCS2 and UTF8 strings
* Most core protocols can send, receive & process the information in Unicode
* The contact lists can display nicks, names and statuses in Unicode (under NT)
* Message editors can display any user information in Unicode, display and enter the Unicode messages;
* User details can process names, addresses, etc in Unicode
* Language packs can provide the valid translation for the Miranda’s interface, even when the default codepage doesn’t match the langpack codepage
* Two Miranda distributions are available since 0.5: the ANSI (for Win95/98/ME) and the Unicode one (for NT4/Win2k/XP/Win2003)
* The standard was designed for all contact list plugins, to simplify the support for sorting, storing, grouping contacts
* png2dib plugin was inserted into the distribution to provide the core-level support for PNG files
* Support for sending files with the Unicode names (not mappable into the current codepage)
* AIM: AIM protocol now using Oscar
* ICQ: Messaging support enhanced (P2P messaging supported)
* ICQ: Direct Connection support rewritten (with P2P messaging and reverse file-transfers)
* ICQ: Temporary Visible List support
* ICQ: New Features page in options to configure extra features
* ICQ: Custom statuses just like icq5
* needs clist_mw derivative (thx Big Muscle)
* ICQ: New custom status icons (thx Angeli-ka)
* ICQ: Enhanced Unicode & Ansi charsets support (each contact can have its own codepage)
* ICQ: AIM cross-compatability (add/remove, search by mail, status, messaging, away messages)
* ICQ: Secure MD5 login authentification
* ICQ: Revoke authorization (Advanced Feature
* see further)
* removes you from contact’s server-list
* SRMM: RTL support for messages in Hebrew and some other languages.
* Jabber: Avatars support (JEP-0008)
* Jabber: Massive groupchat improvements, including private messages & invitations
* MSN: Client version detection
* MSN: Support for nudges
* MSN: Support for some MSN Messenger 7.5 and Live Messenger 8.0 specifics
* Yahoo: Ability to set your own avatar
* Yahoo: Added new icons
* Yahoo: Added address book and calendar links in the main menu
* Yahoo: Added alerts support and link to the main menu
* Yahoo: Added nick to Yahoo login information
* Yahoo: Yahoo now uses new png2dib.dll services for avatar manipulation
* Yahoo: Added Yahoo Japan support
* Yahoo: Added buzz/nudge support
* Yahoo: Offline IMs from blocked people get dropped
* Yahoo: Added basic audible support
* Yahoo: Yahoo File Transfer improvementsBugfixes:
* Clist classic: Right click on a tray icon results to the resource leak
* ICQ: Our own contact in list now correctly handles events
* ICQ: Proxy Gateway mode is working again
* ICQ: File receiving from Trillian clients work again
* ICQ: Message errors are now really displayed
* ICQ: Fixed memory leak in avatar code
* ICQ: File transfers with GnomeICU works now
* ICQ: Fixed changing password in ICQ Details will not save it to DB if not there
* ICQ: Fixed PING channel handling (caused connection drop)
* ICQ: Fixed bug in changeinfo with translated listbox values
* ICQ: Fixed error handling in avatar code for uploading avatar
* ICQ: Fixed bug in Manage-Server list dialog, caused hang
* ICQ: Fixed occasional losing of messages (message parsing was incomplete)
* ICQ: Server-list management now stores all info
* solves problems
* ICQ: Fixed unknown errors during login were not reported sometimes
* Jabber: resource names not UTF8 decoded
* Jabber: people are trying to connect to jabber.org with empty usernames
* MSN: Fix for the error 540 upon login, because of the invalid password hash calculation
* MSN: Fixed the problem of locking the message sending queue by timeouts
* MSN: Fixed disconnection issues for the HTTP gateway mode
* MSN: Fixed some issues with the wrong Hotmail Inbox and Profile Editing URLs
* MSN: Fix for error 911 inside switchboard threads
* Yahoo: Fixed deletion of a buddy from your contact list
* Yahoo: Made fixes to make more strings translatable
* Yahoo: Fixed a bug that could crash srmm
* Yahoo: Properly close the connections
The most popular IRC client for Windows got a new release!
What is New in version 6.2?
* mIRC’s default toolbar is now customizable through a /toolbar command. You can add, move and delete buttons, add your own icons, and of course, attach your own commands to them. By popular demand also a treebar has been added. This lists network connections with channels, queries and other open windows, much like the switchbar. It behaves like the switchbar in many ways as well. You can expand and collapse trees, just like you would expect. Right-clicking on an item pops up the usual menu for that window. Right-clicking in an empty area of the treebar pops up a menu with various display options.
* The treebar width can be set by dragging the border with the mouse, and jsut as with virtually all other windows the background and text colors can be set in the colors dialog. Just like the toolbar the treebar can be repositioned to the top/bottom/left/right of the main mIRC window!
* In the previous version UTF-8 support was added. In this version several UTF-8 related bugs are fixed, including bugs with text wrapping and copy/pasting from UTF-8 “display” or “encode” enabled windows, and bugs relating to the order in which SJIS/JIS and UTF-8 encodings are applied. Much more important is that UTF-8 support has been greatly enhanced in this version of mIRC to allow people all over the world to chat in their own languages, with their own fonts, with a lot less hassle then ever before. To do so support for font substitution/font linking has been added. This allows mIRC to display all characters needed, regardless of the font you are using, assuming you have the required fonts on your system, somewhere. mIRC will try to match font sizes etc. To speed up the process Khaled has implemented his own caching routines to enable fast font/character referencing.
* Of course all buggies and most of the other comments and remarks we received after the previous release have been addressed.
* Various other changes include:
o better support of XP and classic themes,
o faster re-wrapping of text,
o fixes for various $regsubex() and $regsub() parsing bugs, for a flood protection bug, for some agent speech bug, and for a bug with the find dialog in desktop windows,
o and mIRC now stores servers that were connected to successfully to prioritize future server connection attempts, …and a lot more.
* For experienced users and scripting enthousiasts this new version has heaps of changes and other new thingies to play with. We encourage you to explore the new or improved identifiers, and the new events that have been added.
* Some changes are obvious, some need getting used to - please take your time to play with them and see how they work. May we invite you to the Message Board on the website with all questions you might have? The board offers great help with everything related to mIRC!
We’re off for a much needed holiday in France! See you soon. This is where we’ll be staying.
An interesting video about the fact that every weekend, thousands of young French people cross the border to Belgium to party in our clubs. You’ll recognize Marie-Jeanne from Lagoa, George’s from Pulse Factory, CP and others. And some drug dealing on the La Bush parking 
The video is from Capital, on M6 (French television).
“Firefox 2 Beta 1 is a developer preview release of our next generation Firefox browser and it is being made available for testing purposes only. Firefox 2 Beta 1 is intended for web application developers and our testing community. Current users of Mozilla Firefox 1.x should not use Firefox 2 Beta 1 and expect all of their extensions and plugins to work properly.”
Features:
* Built in Phishing Protection.
* Search suggestions now appear with search history in the search box for Google, Yahoo! and Answers.com
* Changes to tabbed browsing behavior
* Ability to re-open accidentally closed tabs
* Better support for previewing and subscribing to web feeds
* Inline spell checking in text boxes
* Search plugin manager for removing and re-ordering search engines
* New microsummaries feature for bookmarks
* Automatic restoration of your browsing session if there is a crash
* New combined and improved Add-Ons manager for extensions and themes
* New Windows installer based on NullSoft Scriptable Install System
* Support for JavaScript 1.7
* Support for client-side session and persistent storage
* Extended search plugin format
* Updates to the extension system to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions
* Support for SVG text using svg:textPath
Ricoh claims they have developed an optical component that reads and writes all disk formats — Blu-ray Disc and HD-DVD, as well as DVD and CD — with one pickup and one objective lens. The component is a 3.5-mm diameter, 1-mm thick round diffraction plate with minute concentric groves on both sides which function as a diffraction grating. Based on disc information the drive can identify which format disk is loaded, Ricoh’s optical diffraction component adjusts the laser beam with its diffraction grating for each format and passes it to the objective lens.
Microsoft have released Private Folder 1.0, which lets you have a folder called ‘My Private Folder’ which you can password protect.
Microsoft Private Folder 1.0 is a useful tool for you to protect your private data when your friends, colleagues, kids or other people share your PC or account. With this tool, you will get one password protected folder called ‘My Private Folder’ in your account to save your personal files.
With technology buzzwords becoming so commonly used in daily life, Webster and Oxford have both begun to include some new terms in their latest editions. Some of their newest additions include: adware, biodiesel, codec, digicam, google (as a verb), geocaching, hacktivism, mash-up, rewriteable, ringtone, spyware, and texting. This is great news for all the Scrabble players out there This news was posted all over the net, but I found the ZDNet article the most interesting.
An interesting article about the world’s most popular music player. It’s no surprise they’re all made in China “Payment is lower because the boss wants to reduce our costs,” said one 26-year-old security guard, who would not reveal his name. “Prices need to be competitive to get orders from abroad.” My opinion on the Ipod? It has a very cool design, the menus and ways to go through them are very handy. But i’ll never own one. I want my music player to be open, be able to plug it in in every computer, whatever the operating system, and put whatever music format on it that i want. So I’m happy with my brand-less usb-stick with 1gb of space, and music playing capabilities.