First shots of Windows 7 leaked?

There's no telling how legitimate these shots might be, and it's quite clear that these screens won't be giving us any juicy details about Windows 7 anytime soon, but we couldn't pass on images that purport to be the first from a super-secret test build of Windows 7 seeded to "key partners." So, anything to see here? Not that we can tell, from the looks of things we're looking at a copy of Vista with the name "Windows 7 Ultimate" tacked on, but there's no telling what's happening under the hood. We know we can't wait to pay another few hundred dollars for a barely noticeable upgrade to Vista that will re-break all driver support, how about you?

Windows 7 to get integrated touch features?

Regardless of how Tablet PCs have actually done in the marketplace, Microsoft has always been a staunch proponent of touch interfaces, and it looks like the next version of Windows, currently under the codename Windows 7, will bundle in multi-touch features like those found in the iPhone and Microsoft's own Surface. The news comes from Microsoft engineer Hilton Locke, who blogged about Dell's multi-touch capable (but not enabled) Latitude XT earlier today, and added, "if you are impressed by the 'touch features' in the iPhone, you'll be blown away by what's coming in Windows 7." Locke went on to imply that it's been challenging selling touch to manufacturers, saying "Now if only we could convince more OEMs that Windows Touch Technology is going to drive their sales." That's a surprise to us -- that Big Ass Table demo pretty much sells itself, don't you think?

Windows 7 feature request list leaks out

Although the Vista transition is far from complete, that doesn't mean Microsoft isn't already hard at work on Windows 7, the next version of the venerable operating system -- and this list of user-requested features unearthed by the folks at NeoWin might hold some clues as to the future. The "wish list" was sent out by Microsoft before Windows 7 development even began, so most of these features probably aren't even on the radar, but what's most interesting is that seemingly small fixes like "Window Update progress indicator" vastly outnumber big-ticket items like "integrated audio / video codec manager" and "Windows 'Game' Mode." We'd say that speaks to a major lack of imagination, so consider this a years-early How Would You Change?, and sound off in comments -- personally, we're hoping for a transactional file system, but we know you all can totally outdo us.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

This is an announcemen from the Joomla'a offical sites...


Welcome to Joomla!






It is with great pride that the Joomla! community announces to the world the immediate availability of Joomla! 1.5 Stable [Khepri]. As a community of contributors, we have been through celebrations and tribulations. We have had fun, and we have worked hard. We have learned from and helped one another. What started two and a half years ago with a letter to the community has grown into a great opportunity for both the Joomla! project and community to benefit from these efforts and to consider our future.

People have contributed enormous amounts of time and energy to make Joomla! 1.5 what it is today. Developers collaborated over long distances, around the clock, enthusiastically contributing to Joomla!. Hours writing code combined with intense discussions on everything from usability to extensibility have defined many developers' lives over the last two and a half years. Countless others have identified and fixed bugs along the way. Documenters have tracked changes to help make life easier for everyone who uses or develops in Joomla! 1.5. Translators for dozens of languages have prepared language packs. Huge amounts of time and energy have gone into event organization, team management, and infrastructure upkeep. Our forums are overflowing with those asking and answering questions about Joomla! 1.5, helping overcome problems and reaching out to newcomers in a concerted effort to be helpful.

Our growing and vibrant open source community is innovating in many ways. The response from community members in both development [Pizza Bugs and Fun] and documentation [Doc Camp] has been both overwhelming and warming. The Google Highly Open Participation Contest energized and excited mentors and students alike, while helping solidify Joomla!'s future by involving talented young people in producing and supporting open source software.

As an application, Joomla! 1.5 boasts remarkable advances over Joomla! 1.0 in the areas of extensibility, usability and internationalization. Building extensions is vastly easier and faster because of the comprehensive new API. The simplified user interface eliminates unnecessary clicks and context changes for site administrators and managers. Support for extended character sets, right to left languages, and translation of all static text in the front end and the administrator allows enhanced internationalization and worldwide use. New options for use of layout overrides and template parameters give designers total control over the look and feel of sites.

While this release marks a major milestone in our history, it also marks a new beginning. The next phase offers the opportunity to bring together the code created, lessons learned, and momentum gained, to build something truly great. It took us tens of thousands of hours, thousands of revisions, and hundreds of people to get to this point. It has been a remarkable journey filled with fun, discovery, and enlightenment where everyone has something to offer and anyone can contribute. Come join in.

First review of Windows 7 Milestone 1 Build 6.1.6519.1

Looks like it didn’t take long for the first external build of Windows 7 to be leaked on to the interwebs. Black fumes were reported escaping Steven Sinofsky’s office earlier this morning after news Microsoft has delivered a Milestone 1 build of the next version of Windows to OEMs spread like wildfire in a dry grassy field on a hot summer’s day.

A member named “kenipnet” on Neowin.net’s forums claims to have and installed this very build on his own desktop and laptop machines, and posted this short review on Neowin. For unknown reasons, it was later deleted by the poster, but fortunately the website administrator “Neobond” has republished a cache version of the original post for all but Sinofsky to see. Of course there’s no way to prove this is true, but the facts appear consistent with ‘other reports’ of what the build contains. Take it with a grain of salt and a cup of tea, donuts sold separately.

From the bink.nu web sites...

Garmin's new Forerunner 405 puts the 'watch' back in 'GPS watch'

Starting with the Forerunner 305, Garmin finally started producing GPS-enabled watches that didn't make you look like a total goof while tracking your pace and vitals, but these still weren't timepieces you'd be comfortable wearing to the office or even a bar. Then came the Forerunner 50, which had the perfect watch-like form factor, but unfortunately, no GPS. So fans of this line will be pleased to learn that Garmin has somehow been able to shoehorn a satellite receiver into a casing not much bigger than the 50's and dubbed it the Forerunner 405. Besides monitoring and logging speed, distance, heart rate and location, the 405 also features a touch-sensitve bezel for controlling its various functions, as well as the same proprietary ANT+Sport wireless syncing technology as the GPS-less 50. Available in either black (pictured above) or green (pictured after the break, along with a video walkthrough), the Forerunner 405 will start at $299.

Talet PC's

Welcome to 2008, readers, and if Axiotron's announcement that its long-awaited Modbook is finally shipping -- several weeks ahead of schedule -- is any indication, it looks to be a good year indeed for consumer electronics fans. First unveiled nearly a year ago at MacWorld 2007, the MacBook-based, Wacom-modified Modbook has definitely seen its share of delays, although in the days and months since, the 13.3-inch slate has gained the distinction of being one of the few pieces of non-Cupertino, Apple-approved hardware. The world's first OS X tablet can be yours immediately starting at $2,290.

from engadget ...