For champions of the open source blogging platform, the latest installment of Wordpress has just been released. Aiming more for polish and bug fixing, it’s surprising the number of features crammed into this release.

Nicknamed “Baker”, most of the changes to Wordpress 2.8 are behind the scenes. The overall back-end system being easier to use for the person in charge of the site, as well as having more customisation features on the Dashboard and post listing pages.

There are also improvements to the Theme selection page – with the ability to search online, according to tickboxes relating to style and colour, for hundred’s of available to download themes. Simply click on the Add New Themes item in the Appearance tab and you’ll be searching in seconds. The Themes also have the ability to install into your blog without you having to upload them manually. The widget management has also been polished up to make things a little clearer and straightforward.

The code editor, if you really like to get your hands dirty with Wordpress, now features syntax highlighting, making it easier to navigate and edit your php & css files. Something programmers have been crying out for!

There are also many bug fixes (790 in all) and an overall speed improvement. If you use Wordpress on your site, I suggest you upgrade immediately! Techsnake.com had no problems and was upgraded within minutes.

The latest version of Firefox has some added features that will appear in the soon to be released Firefox 3.5

Amongst those is the Private Browsing Mode, already popular amongst Chrome and IE users. Private Browsing Mode disables all history being recorded and cookies being saved. Essentially keeping your browsing safe from prying eyes, it has always been heralded as a way to surf internet porn – and even sometimes the developers hint that this was the reason for it being included in the feature set.

There’s also another useful feature built into the latest version. The ability to “tear off” a tab to create that tab’s own window is something which again is (arguably) borrowed from Chrome.

Other features to be included are how Firefox can handle embedded video. Rather than Firefox needing an external plugin, such as Adobe’s Flash, or Apple’s Quicktime, the browser can now render the video itself. This needs to be supported by the site itself however. You can also restrict the results from the address bar – so rather than displaying everything from your history, bookmarks or tagged pages, you can use special characters to display, for instance, just your history when typing.

All in all, Beta 4 is an improvement over the last beta, and we’re being told that the release of Firefox 3.5 is not very far away at all. Download the latest Beta here.

I know, it sounds like a post title to draw you in, but it really isn’t – you can own Windows 7, free for a year, to install on your PC!

Windows 7, the latest operating system from Microsoft, is trying to put to bed the bad press they’ve received recently with their Vista release. Windows 7, in combination with input from users, is being hailed as the best OS that Microsoft have released to date. It is quicker, leaner, and more compatible than ever before. Partly down to a re-written kernel, but also down to the modular approach to the OS – gone are all the extras like Movie Maker, although you’re free to add them to the OS if you want them. Also, with a Windows XP mode,  applications are virtualised in a real Windows XP environment, with the help of Microsoft’s Virtual PC.

But to top this, as the Release Candidate is made available to subscribers to Microsoft’s MSDN, there is also news that anyone, from May 5th, will be able to download the OS, install it and use completely free for year. This is truly a stroke of genius! All those people thinking twice about investing in a new OS, now have the option to use it for a year, and if they’re not happy, simply go back to their old OS without any cost! It raises the bar on the try-before-you-buy way of thinking, and could also eradicate piracy of the OS too. And at the same time, the PR is pure gold for the company. Bare in mind that this is a Release Candidate, and although you can be fairly sure it will contain all of the features you’ll get in the final product, there’s no guarantee of course. But, hey, who cares if it’s free?

Read the Microsoft press release

The impression everyone was given in the community was that IE8 would be different. It would be web standards compliant. Well bad news folks..

It appears that a few sites don’t actually render correctly in the Beta version of Microsoft’s upcoming answer to the modern browser wars. IE8 Beta fails to render 2,400 sites in initial tests, as their creators expected. And those aren’t a few never-before-heard-of sites, but major sites that get millions of hits. Check out the list in a recent ZDNet post.

Now you can argue that the browser is a beta, so things can change, but my argument is that the engine (the part that actually renders web pages) isn’t going to change at all. The only differences between this “platform ready” beta version and the release version boils down to a few GUI changes or usability adjustments.

So expect another Microsoft-broken internet, at least for the foreseeable future. Tech Snake isn’t worried however – the vast majority of visitors to this website use Firefox, or another browser that is sensitive to the web standards. So congrats to everyone who has seen the light!

Born from the bowels of the Microsoft Research Labs, Songsmith was deemed not to be a product by the head-honchos there. And for good reason. The software creates a backing track after listening to the microphone of your singing. The problem is the music sounds as though it’s coming out of a Casio keyboard from 20 years ago.. An interesting idea, I think everyone agrees, but the execution & actual output from the program sucks.

But then, how they ever thought they would sell the product with this advert is anybodies guess. Made using the creator’s own money, it demonstrates the software and how well it works – don’t worry if you don’t make it to the end – it’s a bit of an abomination.

AAAGGHHHH!!! Well there is good news from this evil creation – For one thing this particular video has gone viral (for all the wrong reasons of course) but most importantly, people have taken it into their hearts to isolate the singing from well known songs and pass it through Songsmith – and the results are hilarious!

Read all of this article…

And it gets better – apparently the current release candidate is "platform complete" – meaning that this version will be identical to the final release, which is due in the near future.

IE8 looks to remove, or at least diminish, the previous bad press with the browser by being more web standards compliant. The web standards, laid out by the World Wide Web Consortium, lay out how a browser should render a page correctly The long standing acid tests, from The Web Standards Project is used as a benchmark online, which is known to test almost every aspect of the rendering engine. And the results for IE8 are encouraging. When released it should finally be able to pass the Acid 2 test – which is a first for Microsoft.. Of course then there’s the newer Acid 3 test to tackle!

Download the latest version from Microsoft, but remember that technically it is still Beta.

It’s a subject on everybody’s lips, but HAS Steve Jobs got cancer?? I know, it’s stupid, but there are hundreds of thousands of people asking themselves this question all the time.

Just recently Steve has announced that he had a hormone imbalance that was causing him to loose weight. Well, apparently things have got a little more complicated, and Steve is taking a break from work up until the end of June.

Now you could argue that it’s something really serious with the Apple boss, but more than likely it’s because he has the medical insurance to cover the leave and hospital time, and at the same time will probably be living in a health farm, pounding the exercise machines every day. But then, if it is something serious, he’s probably one of the few on the planet that has the resources to make sure he gets the best care possible.

Planned limited copies of Microsoft’s latest OS have been removed. Anyone can now download Windows 7 Beta without restrictions. The beta will be time limited up until the 1st of August – which should be long enough to find all the bugs and get them ironed out.

I’m impressed by Microsoft’s approach to Windows 7. After the disappointing sales and uptake of Windows Vista, it’s good to see that lessons have been learnt at Microsoft. According to the press releases and general feedback from Microsoft staff, Windows 7 is trying to be everything that people wanted with Vista. And they’re actually reading people’s wish lists too. Part of the reason for the widespread beta program with Windows 7 is for people to play with the interface and let the developers know what they think, and what they want changed.

Hopefully with the long beta testing phase there shouldn’t be any of the rushed feel that Vista had – although it was more settled after the first service pack, the OS never really felt finished. With hoards of enthusiastic testers let loose, hopefully the same mistakes won’t be made.

I was recently sent a copy of Partition Manager Server 3.0 from EASEUS so I decided to check it out and see if it was any good.

Firstly, the software itself is simple to install and get up and running. Although aimed really at the techie, the software does have a comprehensive help system, which as well as explaining the operating of the program, it also gives a good introduction into some partitioning terms. Although you could argue that the user would know perfectly well what partitioning was and how it worked, and if they didn’t they shouldn’t be touching this piece of software anyway.

Read all of this article…

As detailed two days ago, a serious security flaw was highlighted for Internet Explorer. If you do not have Automatic Updates turned on (which I would strongly suggest) you can visit Microsoft’s site to apply the patch manually here to make sure your system is patched and up to date.