Windows/Mac/Linux: Free virtualization tool VirtualBox, technically Oracle VM VirtualBox now, has quietly added "experimental support for Mac OS X guests" to a beta release. That's good news—at least for Mac owners, and those willing to dig into serious Hackintosh tweaks. More »
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Windows: BurnAware Free has one of the most simple interfaces you can find for making a CD or DVD from a computer. A free beta of its upcoming third release converts many formats to usable discs, and won’t tax your system’s resources. More »
Windows/Mac/Linux: If you’re living life on the bleeding edge of Google’s Chrome browser, good news: Google just pushed out an update to the dev channel, improving HTML5 audio and video for all platforms, bringing extension and bookmark sync to Macs, and more.
The Windows build didn’t see many changes, but Mac users should be particularly happy with the update. Having been excluded from extension support when the Chrome extension gallery first opened, Mac users can now officially join in the fun. (See these 18 extensions worth downloading for Chrome to get started with Chrome extensions.) Mac users also gain support for much-needed bookmark sync and support for favicon-only pinned tabs.
Other changes across platforms are a little less exciting, but Mac users who’ve been waiting for Chrome to get the better features available on other platforms should be happy. Check out the dev channel blog post for the full changelog.
Early adopters can join the Chrome dev channel for Windows, Mac, or Linux here. Chrome is a free download.
The Boxee team unveiled its upcoming beta release tonight. From the outset, it looks a whole lot more pretty and user friendly. Native search powers, media queues, much improved looks, and easier navigation are coming to computer-connected TVs soon.
Boxee is based on the same core code as the XBMC project, but has differentiated itself with a different (and, in our opinion, not quite as appealing) look and a social, net-connected focus. The new home screen brings a new look and those social/feed aspects front and center.
It’s divided up into three columns of items on the bottom: friend recommendations on the left, featured media from Boxee and its partners in the middle, and items you’ve queued up on the right.
Anywhere you go in Boxee, you can quickly pull up the universal menu, which lets you rate, recommend, and queue an item, shut down or configure the system, and get access to the major media categories. The very bottom is a kind of bookmark bar, filled with shortcuts to your favorite media channels or files.
Whether you’re looking for a TV show episode you’ve downloaded or a show available for streaming anywhere in Boxee’s ecosystem, you can find it by doing a quick search from the sidebar. There’s a tiny keyboard built in for remote users, and quick filtering tools below. In general, Boxee treats your local media and streaming content as pretty much one and the same, in search and in handling.
Beyond being just a media player and Netflix/Hulu portal, Boxee’s photo, video, music, and even social networking apps set it apart. We’ve already thought about the possibilities of Clicker on Boxee, and more apps are likely on the way.
Want even more peeks at what the Boxee beta’s got inside? Check out Gizmodo’s screenshot gallery.
Under the hood, Boxee’s beta will feature a number of bug fixes from the alpha, and will switch from OpenGL to DirectX graphics on Windows, along with enabling DirectX video acceleration, allowing for much speedier and less resource-intensive playback. There’s also going to be baked-in support for NVIDIA’s cheaper-but-powerful Ion graphics chips, likely pointing to the pre-built Boxee box. Coincidentally, this also makes this editor’s homemade Boxee media center an even more badass investment.
Boxee’s beta is rolling out now to approved early access users (you can sign up here if you feel lucky). Next up will be those already using the alpha, and then, on Jan. 7, the general public. Tell us what you think of Boxee’s new look and direction, and what else you think it needs, in the comments.
Windows: Wanna give Office 2010′s online document syncing, Windows 7 taskbar integration, and killer quick steps a go? Microsoft has thrown open the doors on a free beta of Office 2010 Professional—for those who can wait out the download.
As with the Windows 7 beta and most Microsoft offerings, this one requires grabbing a license key, registering or signing in with a Windows Live/Passport account, and fighting it out with the many others trying to grab the download from the servers. The download is 684 MB, and Microsoft is suggesting users uninstall previous versions of Office before downloading—as well as asking that you "don't test Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta on your primary home or business PC."
Okay, sure thing, Redmond. Let us know if you’ve grabbed the beta, or found any helpful mirror links, in the comments. Office 2010 Professional beta is a free download for Windows XP SP3 and later systems.
Last week we took a look at initial design mockups for Firefox 3.7, and now the busy designers at Mozilla are back with some theme mockups for the even-further-into-the-future Firefox 4.0.
(Click any of the images for a closer look.)
As you can see in the screenshot above, the Firefox folks are toying with the idea of a Google Chrome-like tabs-on-top interface.
They're also looking at consolidating the Stop, Refresh, and Go buttons to save a little extra space in the toolbar—similar to a user chrome tweak we’ve been using for quite a while.
Keep in mind that all of the changes you see here are not final—they're just exploring different ideas for upcoming releases of Firefox. Similarly, it'll be quite some time before either Firefox 4.0 or Firefox 3.7 hits servers, so if you like the basic look but want to get it now, here's how to make Firefox 3.5 look like Firefox 3.7.
Yesterday Mozilla introduced a new Firefox project, called JetPack, that could revolutionize the extensibility of Firefox. Currently available as a Firefox extension, JetPack allows users to extend their browser using regular HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. So far JetPack seems to us sort of like a hybrid between a normal extension and Greasemonkey user scripts; using new JetPack functionality requires a page refresh and not a browser restart (like Greasemonkey), but JetPack can add elements to the user chrome (like extensions). It’s a tool that’ll probably interest developers most for the time being, but JetPack’s functionality could be the future of Firefox extensions down the road. [JetPack via Mozilla Labs]
Windows: An early look at sample extensions for Google Chrome shows the browser implementing notifications and page awareness in status bar icons. They’re not much, but they’re helpful to Gmail and Google Reader users.
To try out one or more of the three sample extensions being shown off at the Chromium developer’s documentation, you’ll have to download the Google Chrome Channel Chooser and switch to the weekly updated “Dev” channel. You’ll also have to add --extensions-enabled at the end of your Google Chrome shortcuts, then head to the page below and click the “Install” links.
The Gmail notifier took a few minutes to update and stop displaying the word “Login” in my own test, but the Google Reader and Chromium Developer notifier worked just fine. There’s far more to come, we’d presume, from Chrome’s extensions, but this is a neat little sneak peek. Thanks to Owen for the link!
