Yes It's Free, no catch, I"m using it for some time on two computer and it's great. The best thing about Comodo Firewall Pro (beside the fact that it's free) is the simple way to use it and configure it, but you can also get advanced is you want. It's for everyone!

A few fact about Comodo Firewall Pro
- Rated as #1 most secure firewall in independent security tests
- Complete protection from Hackers, Spyware and Identity theft
- Secures against internal and external threats
- Host Intrusion Prevention System stops malware ever being installed
- Delivers total end-point security for Personal Computers and Networks
- Free Download. No charges or license fees ever.


Download Comodo Firewall Pro - FREE

System Requirements (version 3.0):

- Windows XP – 32 and 64 bit versions
- Windows Vista – 32 and 64 bit versions
- 64 Mb RAM
- 50 Mb free disk space

Labels: comodo, firewall, free

The first public step towards the next significant release of Mozilla Firefox, the well known and loved browser, was made.

New features and changes include:

Improved security features such as: better presentation of website identity and security, malware protection, stricter SSL error pages, anti-virus integration in the download manager, and version checking for insecure plugins.

Improved ease of use through: better password management, easier add-on installation, new download manager with resumable downloading, full page zoom, animated tab strip, and better integration with Windows Vista and Mac OS X.

Richer personalization through: one-click bookmarking, smart search bookmark folders, direct typing in location bar searches your history and bookmarks for URLs and page titles, ability to register web applications as protocol handlers, and better customization of download actions for file types.

Improved platform features such as: new graphics and font rendering architecture, major changes to the HTML rendering engine to provide better CSS, float-, and table layout support, native web page form controls, colour profile management, and offline application support.

Performance improvements such as: better data reliability for user profiles, architectural improvements to speed up page rendering, over 300 memory leak fixes, and a new XPCOM cycle collector to reduce entire classes of leaks.

Here you can download Firefox 3 Beta 1 for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

There's already an add-on available for RAM memory issues in Firefox to help you.

The final release date for Firefox 3 was not specified, but many are expecting it to come in the first quarter of 2008.

Labels: beta, firefox, free, mozilla

For about a week we launched our links directory, where you can enter your links for free.

Please note that all links are verified and only after that they are submitted. Thanks!

Labels: directory, free, links

Last week the Chitika Blog hosted an mini tutorials series in which 5 blog experts showed their Chitika & Google Adsense ads placement tips. Chitika put these together as a free ebook:




Who wrote the book?
Tomaz Mencinger of FreedomIdeas
Tim Flight of GPSReview
Rich Owings of GPSTracklog
Enrique Flouret of The Photoshop Roadmap
Jay Brewer of BlogPire Productions

Labels: advertising, book, free

Quizam is a new way for study that might come in handy for students.
It's a computer-based tool that utilizes time-tested quizzing methods that makes it easy for students to learn in an environment where their learning curve is accelerated. Learning is accelerated because the mechanism for recall, repetition and feedback reinforce memory.

It's versatile and can be accessed any time, by anyone! It prepares students for standardized tests, focuses on skills improvement and real-time assessment. It's the perfect tool for review, remediation and advanced work, K-12 through adult.

The program is freely downloadable (until 31 Dec. 2006) on the Internet, or available on a CD ROM, which is a benefit to schools in remote areas around the world. A six-month pilot study of seventy-one schools world-wide is underway, and results from the study will be available in early 2007.

What are the benefits ?

• Supports technology in the classroom initiatives, enabling an innovative way of teaching and learning.
• Helps teachers use assessment data to inform real world lesson planning.
• Increases parent-teacher communication.
• Encourages student participation and 'peer-to-peer' learning.

Quizzes include everything from English grammar, French verbs, math, science and social studies - to trivia quizzes, a boat license quiz, even a Cessna 172 Aircraft Checkout quiz. Quizam(R) is unique in that every time a person repeats a quiz, a different set of multiple choice questions appear. The program randomly chooses the possible answers and challenges the user each time.

The program was developed by Russ Rossi, a computer programmer for twenty-five years and father of five children, the program began out of the need for helping his kids with homework.

Labels: education, free, technology

Another positive piece of news for Skype is that Google's free collection of essential software bundled in Google Pack now includes Skype's VOIP application.

With this great move, Skype now joins the likes of Google Earth, Picasa, Google Talk, Google Video Player, Google Desktop, Mozilla Firefox, Google Toolbar, Norton AntiVirus, Adobe Reader, Ad-Aware SE Personal, GalleryPlayer HD Images and RealPlayer freely available from Google.

Labels: free, google, voip

Great news from 37Signals regarding their manifesto book Getting Real.

They want millions of people to read this exceptional book, so 37Signals introduce two new versions that make the content even more accessible.

Also, beside this manifesto, I'm a huge fan of TaDa Lists.

Read more about this great news on their popular weblog: Signal vs. Noise

Labels: free, web

The Apache Software Foundation announced the release of Apache Geronimo Version 1.1, an open source J2EE application server from the Apache Geronimo project. This release continues the evolution of the Apache Geronimo server, adding new features and capabilities to a fully compliant J2EE container suitable for everything from development to enterprise deployments.

Apache Geronimo Version 1.1 introduces several structural changes designed to improve scalability, portability and overall organization. An easy-to-use configuration and management console provides access to the new innovative plug-in architecture, allowing advanced control over the rich modularity of the Apache Geronimo server as well as simplifying day-to-day operational management tasks.

The project would also like to announce the release of "Little G" Version 1.1, a lightweight application server for applications that don't need the full feature set of J2EE. Perfect for web-service and SOA deployments, "Little G" brings the modularity, manageability and extensibility of Apache Geronimo to a lightweight, non-J2EE footprint.

This flexible, easy-to-use, and easy-to-configure application server is built from best-of-breed open source components and is fully licensed under the Apache Software License, offering multiple benefits to organizations and their development teams. The software is available now for free download from the Apache Geronimo web site (http://geronimo.apache.org/).

About The Apache Software Foundation
The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational, legal and financial support for a broad range of open source software projects. The Foundation provides an established framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that simultaneously limits contributors' potential legal exposure. Through a collaborative and meritocratic development process, Apache projects deliver enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large communities of users. The pragmatic Apache License makes it easy for all users, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products.

About Java and J2EE
Java and J2EE are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks or registered trademarks herein are property of their respective owners.

Links: Apache Org., Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Labels: free, java, linux, open source, sun

Forum Systems has released the Forum Java Web Services Security (JWSS) Software Development Kit (SDK) version 1.0 offering developers a comprehensive library of application programming interfaces (API’s) to leverage in coding Web Services applications.

The JWSS SDK v1.0 addresses the need for security to be enforced within the application itself in order to ensure privacy and integrity of Web Services and SOA applications.

Forum JWSS SDK v1.0 allows developers to administer and apply security policies within J2EE compliant Application Servers using a declarative security model and API’s for XML message authentication and authorisation. The Application Server is then responsible for applying these security constraints to the code at runtime.

Adding XML security within business logic prevents transactions from bypassing third-party enforcement points that would violate regulatory compliance or work flow security. Companies should complement this developer-centric approach with an
“interception” model using a SOA Gateway or XML Firewall within a DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) for a global and scalable SOA security and acceleration strategy.

Forum Systems has released the Forum Java Web Services Security (JWSS) Software Development Kit (SDK) version 1.0 offering developers a comprehensive library

Source: SDA India Magazine

Labels: free, java, web

The Mutagenix suite consists of a rescue disk, a GNOME desktop disk and a KDE desktop disk. The desktop disks also include the rescue disk as the underpinning foundation with all the tools that come with a rescue disk. Mutagenix is built on Slackware Linux and uses Slapt-get as the foundation for the Mutagenix build system. Mutagenix can also be installed on a hard-drive.

Mutagenix screenshots:



Mutagenix has the following features:
• Automatic hardware detection using ArchLinux's lshwd
• Supports SATA, SCSI and IDE drives
• Detects and mounts EXT2, EXT3, Reiserfs, XFS, JFS, VFAT and NTFS formatted partitions.
• Rescue, KDE 3.5, and GNOME 2.12.1 versions
• Kernel 2.6.14.2
• Boot time option (nomount) not to mount any partitions
• Boot time option (samba) to allow Windows Networking (Samba) through the firewall
• SLAX .mo tools
• Dialog based installer
• Simplified modem dialup script
• Starts automatically as a dhcp client
• Integrated Firewall which auto starts on DHCP networks in stealth mode
• Slapt-get, with multiple rc files with different sources, is included
• Cpan2tgz for automatically downloading and installing perl modules
• Clamav antivirus program for scanning your nasty windows partitions
• Partimage for creating partition images (ghosting)
• Parted and Gparted partition management software
• Chntpw Windows password changing utility
• Mozilla-Firefox web browser
• Scribus Desktop Publishing
• Audacity multi-track sound mixer
• Xmule P2P
• Mutagenix Themes
• Ext2 partitioned USB keys will be mounted as your home dir (/root) so your environment can be saved
• An xorg.conf on the mounted USB key will be used instead of the default supplied xorg.conf

The three editions of Mutagenix are:
1.Base Slackware Rescue, Installation, Networking, Anti-virus and Utility CD
2.KDE 3.5 (Rescue CD base with XFCE alternate)
3.Freerock Gnome 2.12.1 (Rescue CD base with FVWM alternate)

Link: Mutagenix CD
Source: SoftPedia News

Labels: free, gnome, kde, linux, mutagenix

Here comes The Dawning of the Age of AJAX. Google just released (in Beta) the "Google AJAX Search API" - comprised of JavaScript that allows you to display results from Google searches, including text and URL results from Google Web Search and results from searches on other Google services on your website.

A Google employee said: "If enough people like the API as is, we are done. What we are really trying to do here is get feedback from you on what you do and don’t like. This is a real beta program where we want to hear what you have to say and where we will address as many issues with the design and interface that we can."

The Javascript library allows developers to create embedded search modules that can dynamically search over multiple Google media (Web, Local, Video etc.) and include the results directly alongside other Web site content, such as a blog. Google does not recommend the software for use yet in mission-critical Web sites, but it is seeking out user feedback through a discussion board dedicated to the new program. Eventually, Google AJAX Search API will be integrated with advertising.

Link:Google AJAX Search API

Labels: ajax, free, google

Have you written your own AJAX framework yet? It seems all the big boys are doing it. Microsoft is bringing us Atlas for ASP.NET, Yahoo!'s User Interface Library is open source, server agnostic and beautifully documented and Adobe is working on Spry, which is off to a shaky start in the web standards department. Do we really need another?

Google's late-but-inevitable entry into this arena is certainly no copycat. The Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is nothing less than a completely original approach to web development that allows server-side Java developers to take their skills to the JavaScript domain… without having to write any JavaScript.

In short, you write, test and debug your client-side code in Java and then use a specialized compiler to convert it all into cross-browser JavaScript for use on your site.

How's it work?
You can write you client-side code using the usual core Java classes in the java.lang and java.util packages, as well as a nice library of classes that come with GWT that let you access the same browser features that are available in JavaScript (the Docment Object Model, alert boxes, setTimeout, XMLHttpRequest, etc.).


You also get a bunch of Java classes for adding widgets to the page, from simple buttons to complex drop-down menus and trees. All of these widgets offer events that you can subscribe listener objects to, and write Java code to respond to them.


When you're ready to test out your application in a browser, you simply compile your classes in your Java IDE of choice and launch the GWT Shell, which pops up a specialized browser window and loads your application. On Windows, that browser window uses the Internet Explorer rendering engine, whereas on Linux it uses Mozilla.

The GWT Shell acts as a go-between between your Java classes and the special browser window, allowing your application's client-side logic to run within the browser even though it is implemented in Java, not JavaScript. This small miracle actually lets you test and debug your client-side logic as you would any other Java code! Set breakpoints to pause and step through client-side event handlers, write unit tests to verify that your user interface works as designed. It all just works.



At this stage, your application is still a collection Java classes, and the final development step is to compile those classes down to efficient cross-browser JavaScript code. The compiler that comes with GWT actually reads the source code of your classes and generates the equivalent JavaScript code!

You can then take the generated JavaScript code, along with your static HTML, CSS and image files and dump them on a server as you would for any other web site. The resulting code is entirely self-contained-no browser plugins or special server technology required.

What about AJAX?
As I mentioned, the class library does give you access to the XMLHttpRequest object normally used in AJAX applications, but GWT also offers an even slicker method of communicating with the server.

In addition to your client-side code, you can write Java server-side code. Because it doesn't get converted to JavaScript, this code can use the full capabilities of the Java platform, and any additional class libraries you may require.

In your client-side code, you can set up classes that are able to communicate with your server-side code. When your application is compiled, GWT will automatically generate all the JavaScript needed to communicate with the server on the client-side, and will compile your server-side code to a set of Java Servlets.

You can deploy these Servlets on any Java web server, and let GWT do the rest. GWT manages the conversion between JavaScript variables on the client-side and Java objects on the server side, and again it all just works.

GWT also includes a full browser history management system, allowing you to involve the browser's Back and Forward buttons in your application's navigation, even though the browser never actually leaves the page containing your applications.
Sticking Points

Google has definitely put together an impressive platform with GWT, but as one would expect (especially from a beta product) it's not perfect:

• GWT detects and supports browsers by their user agent string. You must rely on Google to add support for future browsers. Right now, for example, GWT applications are incompatible with IE7. You can hack the toolkit to treat it like IE6, but that's the extent of what you can do to support new browsers.


• The bundled GWT widgets make extensive use of tables for layout. If you want you application to generate a standards-compliant document structure, you'll need to write your own widgets, which isn't a happy prospect.


• GWT was written to work with Java 1.4 or later. As such, it does not take advantage of Java 5 features like annotations and generics. This adds some redundancy and bulk to the code you must write, especially when working with the AJAX features of the library. For example, each server-side access point in your application requires you to write an interface to describe the servce, another interface to describe the asynchronous version of the service, and finally a class to implement the service. Using annotations, you could do it all by writing just one class.


• 
  


• The development shell does not support Mac OS X. Google is saying that Mac support is planned, but for now GWT development is limited to Windows and Linux. Compiled GWT applications run just fine in Mac browsers, of course.


• 
  


• Unclear best practices for security and performance. By masking the client-server division, GWT could lead unwary developers to make some serious security and performance blunders. You really need to know what you're doing to use GWT effectively.

But the biggest thing lacking in GWT is an example of a finished, real-world application running in the wild. No doubt Google is hard at work on its next big project using GWT, but for now at least GWT is unproven technology.

Link: Google Web Toolkit
Source: SitePoint Blogs

Labels: ajax, free, google, java, web

Check out the new improved Google AdSense Tips page.

It still offers many classic tips you may be familiar with, but also new tips and the page now is better organized, with more visual examples of optimization tips in action.

You can learn here how to test the succes of your pages with channels, where to place Google ads, which ad format you should use, what color palettes are the most successful, how to maximize your ad space with multiple ad units and the most important tips is how can you get your site better indexed by Google's search results ... read more here.

Update (22 nov 2006): These tips are improved the same time new features are added to Google AdSense, so if you use it then you should check this page from time to time. Forget about spending money on those "make money now books", and follow these tips because these are the best and free!

Labels: advertising, free, google

I've already downloaded the new (and still free) version of Firefox 1.5, it's so cool. I highly recomend it!

The new version of the open-source browser Firefox is based on the new Gecko 1.8 rendering engine, making the browser more faster and more stable. Also it offers a host of new features like:

• the ability to reorder tabs by drag and drop;
  
• faster back and forward buttons;
  
• additional privacy and accessibility and improved popup blocking;
  
• Firefox now supports SVG, CSS 2, CSS 3 and JavaScript 1.6.
  

The new version 1.5 of Firefox is available now for free ... get it.

Labels: firefox, free, mozilla