Thursday 2 August 2012

Firefox OS screenshots


Preview screenshots have been released of Firefox OS, Mozilla's mobile phone operating systems (originally labelled Boot to Gecko).






 


































Although a lot of progress has been made since the last batch of leaked shots, Firefox OS is still in early stages.  From these pictures it is clear that the developers were heavily influenced by Google's Android mobile OS.  All of the screenshots show standard phone tasks in operation, at this point there is nothing that stands out.

Mozilla have previously stated that they were aiming at the lower end of the market: cheaper phones with less power than their rivals.  However with an ever expanding range of Android phones available costing less than £100, Firefox OS will need to offer something to entice users to switch.

Gaining support from the phone carriers is always going to be a major obstacle for any new mobile OS producer, however Mozilla have stated that Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telenor will support Firefox OS. Device manufacturers TCL Communication Technology (under the Alcatel One Touch brand) and ZTE have also announced their intentions to manufacture the first devices to feature Mozilla's new smartphone OS.

It's early days yet, but the initial signs for Firefox OS look promising, but not mind blowing.


Wednesday 1 August 2012

Jamendo - download Ogg files directly (Updated)

*****Due to Jamendo restructuring it's file archives, this method no longer works in order to obtain albums in ogg vorbis format, I will post an update when I find an alternative method******

Jamendo has all of the songs on it's site available in Ogg Vorbis format, however back on the old site this was only offered as a torrent option and the severe lack of any seeders left many users (including this one) very frustrated. Given that the files are there, the lack of an obvious way to download them is very frustrating.  But there is a way to directly download the albums in Ogg Vorbis format to your PC.

It is not as simple as a one click, however it is not overly complicated.

1. First go to the page of the album you wish to download (this will not work from the artist or song pages), in my example I'm using the Roads and Lakes by Crazy Evolution.














 2. Take a look at the address bar, this will have the album's ID, in this case it is a77507.  Take a note of the numbers only. For this album: 77507





3. Place this into the address bar of your browser:
http://www.jamendo.com/get/album/id/album/archiverestricted/redirect/{album ID numbers go here}/?are=ogg3

so for my example to get the Crazy Evolution album it would be :
http://www.jamendo.com/get/album/id/album/archiverestricted/redirect/77507/?are=ogg3

4. From the pop up window select Save File and then click OK

















Once your downloads have finished; sit back, relax and enjoy your music in a free format.