I love Cross Browser Testing. It's really exactly what I've been looking for for the last decade.

Using Java or your own VCN software, CrossBrowserTesting (CBT) allows you to connect remotely to a desktop operating system of your choice -- Ubuntu (linux), Mac, and various versions of windows (98-vista) with full administrative privileges.  From here, you can test your websites (or software applications) against these other configurations.  You can't, on the fly, swap operating systems -- and as such, will find yourself going through multiple sessions to test against everything you need to.  But at the end of the day, multiple sessions is a lot easier than cross browser testing without access to everything.

The NANY Challenge is DonationCoder's annual Software Challenge where coders of all experience levels are challenged to pledge a New Application for the New Year and release it on January 1, 2009.

It's getting down to the business end of the 2009 Challenge with our coders busily polishing their entries and making things ready for the approaching release deadline on January 1st 2009. There has been a lot activity on the NANY 2009 Forum with 26 of our 37 Pledgers posting either Teasers or Releases already! It's a great place to get a sneak preview of the upcoming applications, offer functionality suggestions and even help by beta testing the pre-releases.

The Pledge Deadline has already been extended once, but we're still getting enquiries from coders wanting to Pledge their commitment to this year's Challenge. It's not easy turning people away from one of life's harmless and fun challenges: so we generally don't. If you've been wanting to join the fun but can not come up with an idea, why not check out the Communal Idea Thread, where members have offered some ideas they'd like to see entered. DonationCoder also has an active Programming School that has a wealth of ideas and opportunities that could be developed into a NANY Challenge entry. For more information about the DonationCoder Programming School see these Instructions.

Teaser / Entry Focus
JustCloseSomeTasks
JustCloseSomeTasks is an utility to let you easily close inactive tasks (windows). It saves taskbar and desktop space by allowing you to close the stuff you've not used for a while. Tasks are automatically marked for closing when they've not been used for a certain time period (expiry time). The program will learn your behaviour and adjust this expiry time.JustCloseSomeTasks knows which programs that has not used and helps manage the taskbar by closing these on mass. The application is portable.


LifeSaver
LifeSaver, on the surface, is Yet Another Diary/Journal Application, but with the very important feature of storing the data in an open format. A fundamental problem with nearly all Diary software is that the data is locked into a proprietary datastore and format. This is absolutely antithetical to the purpose of a diary: long-term tracking of thoughts. At some point in the future, our current applications and the format in which they store the data will be obsolete; it's imperative that something like this be easily extractable, in a way that can be imported into future systems. LifeSaver features: Entries formatted in rich text (HTML to facilitate export),Password-protected datastore, Multiple entries allowed per day, Browse next/previous entry, Export to XML. Tagging, Full Text Search and attached images are planned features.


Puppy Toes Dog Records
Puppy Toes Dog Records is a database application that allows dog breeders to keep breeding and medical records along with other important information on their dogs. The application keeps basic dog information, parents information, additional information, breeding records, medical records and extra notes. The interface is customisable.


HexCards
HexCards is an addictive card game in which two players strategically place hexagonal cards on a playing field to capture the other's cards. Each of the six sides of each card is assigned a numeric value ranging from 1 to 10. When you place a card on the playing field, you can capture cards in adjacent tiles if the value for that specific side is larger than the value on the adjacent card's side. Watch the video tutorial for a demonstration with instructions for more information.


MiniBrowseIE
MiniBrowseIE is a small and light web browser with advanced capabilities: The current version does not require installation and can be run from virtually any media (its under 500k in size!). MiniBrowseIE is a basic internet browser utilizing the Internet Explorer rendering engine. Features: History, LinkView, Favorites, Website security notification, RSS, Printing (w/ previews), Privacy options, General options, Keyboard shortcuts. Parental controls, Password saving, Better tab control (close button directly on tab, etc), Switch back over to the Gecko engine (eventually) are planned features.

This is a serious security patch that needs to be applied by anyone running any version of MS windows.

The out-of-band security update fixes a JavaScript-related vulnerability that's being actively exploited through hacked Web sites.

By Thomas Claburn
InformationWeek
December 17, 2008 02:00 PM

Microsoft has released an out-of-band security update, MS08-078, to fix a vulnerability in its Internet Explorer Web browser that's being actively exploited.

"At this time, we are aware only of attacks that attempt to use this vulnerability against Windows Internet Explorer 7," said Christopher Budd, Microsoft security response communications lead, in an e-mailed statement. "Our investigation of these attacks so far has verified that they are not successful against customers who have applied the security update. MS08-078 has a maximum severity rating of Critical for all versions of Internet Explorer."

Nonetheless, Microsoft lists Internet Explorer 5.01, 6, and 7 as affected software in its Security Bulletin. It also says separately, in the FAQ section, that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 is affected.

article: http://www.informati...?articleID=212501006
download patch from windows update -- or see http://www.microsoft...lletin/ms08-078.mspx

This is a really short essay about the significance of adding a plugin system to your software, from the standpoint of developer happiness.  It's something i've been meaning to write for a while.

New Resplendence freeware is WhoCrashed:

WhoCrashed reveals the drivers responsible for crashing your computer

Whenever a computer running Windows suddenly reboots without displaying any notice or blue screen of death, the first thing that is often though about is a hardware failure. In reality, most crashes are caused by malfunctioning device drivers and kernel modules. In case of a kernel error, most computers running Windows do not show a blue screen unless they are configured to do so. Instead these systems suddenly reboot without any notice.

WhoCrashed shows the drivers which have been crashing computer with a single click. In most cases it can pinpoint the offending drivers which have been causing misery on your computer system in the past. It does post-mortem crashdump analysis and presents all gathered information in a comprehensible way.

I have dual Mitsubishi "Diamond Pro" 930sb 17" monitors ($5 each from the local Sheriff's Boys Ranch Thrift Store.  Invariably I'll need to use the mouse to do something, only to find the cursor is on the other screen.

So my idea, a "Cursor Wormhole". Hit a hotkey (for me the 'Pause/Break' key would be ideal) and the cursor would vanish from one screen and reappear centered on the other screen. Sounds simple, but don't know how difficult implementation would be.