While Windows users have been enjoying a finalized version of Carakan and the significantly faster Opera 10.50 long enough for the browser to have upgraded to version 10.51, Mac users have found themselves without a stable update from Opera 10.10. The development process is still under way, but Thursday Opera announced a second public beta for the Mac. Opera 10.52 beta 2 has taken such a long time to develop that the version number has been changed from version 10.50.

Despite the month and a half since its last revision, Opera 10.52 beta 2 introduces relatively few new features. The Carakan JavaScript engine has received several performance tweaks, and many of the bugs that affected scrolling have been addressed. Smooth scrolling is now enabled by default. Most notably, Opera has decided to make the browser compatible with older Macs. Unlike the previous beta, this version will work on legacy PowerPC machines. Both this beta and the first one worked on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and later.

In casual testing on a Mac Mini with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, a 1.83Ghz Core 2 Duo processor, and 1GB of RAM, using the SunSpider JavaScript test to compare Opera 10.52 beta 2 to Google Chrome 5.0.375.6, the latest development version of Google Chrome still finished slightly faster than the latest Opera beta. Opera scored an average of 545.8 milliseconds over three runs, while Chrome notched 477.0 ms averaged over three runs. Chrome's speed increased by 85.53 ms as compared to the version tested in February, while Opera's was 52.53 ms faster than its previous version. If you're a Mac user looking to give your browsing a kick in the pants, one of these two browsers is clearly the way to go.

Multitouch trackpad gestures are supported in this beta, too. You can now take advantage of pinch-to-zoom, two-finger swipe to scroll, three-finger swipe to navigate your browser history, and one that Opera claims will make the browser window transparent. The full changelog for Opera 10.52 beta 2 can be read here.

Although the company hasn't explicitly stated this, it's clear that Opera hopes that getting a speedy and fully synchronizable browser onto phones plays a big part in reinvigorating interest in their desktop version, which was quickly surpassed by Google Chrome in browser market share.

Conversationalists using Trillian IM will now have a new version of the multinetwork chat app to try: Trillian 4.2 beta for Windows.

While it's still a minor update by our standards, there are a few interesting additions to this version of Trillian, including a lookup feature that can preview the contents of a hyperlink in the message window when you hover the cursor over it. In addition to saving you time by giving you the gist of the site without drawing your attention to a new browser tab, there's a good chance that previewing a hyperlink could save you some workplace embarrassment for those links that are best viewing in private settings. The preview capabilities go for links generated from link-shortening services like TinyURL and bit.ly as well.

We found that the preview didn't work for every URL, but we were able to successfully preview many sites, including a Wikipedia article, a Picasa Web album picture, news sites, and Yelp. We've long found the similar feature that looks up common words in Wikipedia annoying enough to turn off in the Preferences, but we'll hang onto the URL preview feature for now.

Back in the buddy list, Trillian 4.2 beta now supports Twitter retweets and Twitter lists. It also lets you sign into Windows Live Messenger (previously MSN) from multiple locations without signing you out anywhere else. Trillian now turns on the green light for sending Windows Live Messenger messages to mobile phones. Trillian's new activity history feature lets you browse sent images. You can read about more feature upgrades in Trillian's blog post, and nitty gritty tweaks in the change log.

To celebrate the release, Trillian-maker Cerulean Studios is also selling Trillian Pro (Trillian, plus extra skins and services) for $10.00 until close-of-business on Thursday, April 22, 2010.

Keep in mind that since this is a beta product, you may encounter bugs and other instabilities if you do download Trillian 4.2 beta for Windows.

Google put out a pair of small, but useful Gmail updates on Thursday that make it both easier to use and more integrated with the company's free Calendar service. Notably, both have skipped a trial through the service's "labs" section, and gone straight through to the final product.

The first is drag-and-drop attachments, a feature which lets you drag files from your desktop machine right into your e-mail message to have them begin uploading. It works the same as the system Google implemented in its Wave service for photos and other media types. It also has the same requirement of the user having to run Google Chrome or Firefox 3.6.

To use it within Gmail, users just drag any file from their hard drive (or from within an open application) into a new green box that appears within the compose menu. The service then uploads it in the background, which--just like uploading any other attachment--lets you do other things as the bits are being pushed.

The other new feature is a nice follow-up to the experimental rescheduling feature the company introduced to its Calendar product just last month. It adds a little "insert invitation" link just below the subject line of outgoing e-mails. When clicked, it pops up with a Google Calendar invitation-maker that includes a visual of when there are open times to meet based on those people's schedules. As soon as you send it, the event gets added to everyone's calendars (if they're on Gmail that is), or attached as an .ICS file.

Between the two, the drag-and-drop attachments is really the new, killer feature. For those users on Chrome or Firefox (with Mozilla's Prism installed) who are running Gmail as a standalone desktop Web app, this adds a whole new layer of functionality, and one that more closely resembles a real piece of software.

Related: Dragdropupload, which added the drag-and-drop feature to Gmail, as well as a handful of other Web mail services.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Evernote has pushed out a useful update to its premium service that adds a few more reasons to spend the $5 a month (or $45 a year) fee. Premium users now get double the storage on the size of notes, which has jumped from 25MB to 50MB a pop.

More impressive though is that the service is finally getting versioning control. Versioning is something that's especially important in word processing. If you're working on a particularly large piece of work, you might very well cut out portions here and there that you wish to bring back later on. Under the old system, these would have disappeared.

The way this works now is that the system saves your work several times a day. You can then see all the various versions Evernote has saved (as long as there have been changes), then either click on them to launch the Web editor, or export it as a file that can open up within Evernote's desktop application.

The big caveat here is that versioning doesn't save every little change you do throughout the day, and it only works with the Web version of Evernote, and not in the software version. This is a temporary setback though--the company says versioning control is coming to its mobile and desktop software apps soon.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

Microsoft Outlook 2010 beta may still be weeks away from making the jump to general release, but that hasn't stopped Xobni from creating a new version of its e-mail search tool that's compatible with Outlook 2010. We tested out Xobni's version 1.9.2 e-mail search assistant on Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 beta with good results.

For those who are new to it, Xobni (in-box spelled backward) is a free Outlook add-on that beats the pants off Outlook's built-in e-mail search. While Xobni's core talent lays in rapidly finding e-mails and contacts based on any keyword search, it also excels at surfacing meetings and file attachments, hyperlinks, and even personal information extracted from social networks, like photos and phone numbers.

The number of new features in Xobni 1.9.2 is modest, with most of the work focused on behind-the-scenes compatibility with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Outlook 2010. There are a few differences, however. In Outlook 2010, Xobni gains a foothold in the Outlook navigation ribbon. There's a search bar and a button to show or hide the Xobni sidebar, but so far the module is more a shortcut to Xobni's sidebar than it is a true command center.

There is one trick rolled into this module, though--if you've got multiple Outlook windows open, you can click the "show sidebar" button to make Xobni switch over to the new window. We'd rather see Xobni automatically pop up in all open instances of Outlook, but this is a reasonable enough workaround for now.

The handful of other enhancements (for both versions of Outlook) include Xobni's ability to now grab Twitter profile pictures in addition to public mug shots from social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, and the fact that premium Xobni Plus features users can now delete people from the list of auto-suggested contacts you see when composing a new e-mail message. In another backend change, business professionals who aren't administrators of their computers can now download Xobni, whereas before they had to cut corporate tape.

One of the most useful new features sees users of the premium (and relatively new) Xobni One service being able to view thumbnail images of contacts from one Outlook in-box to the other. When it was first introduced in mid-March, the cloud-based Xobni One only "synced" Outlook contacts between Xobni for Outlook and Xobni on the BlackBerry. Now, Xobni's servers can share photo information between multiple Xobni desktop add-ons under your name.

The company also notes that it's fixed some known bugs that had Xobni conflicting with (or disappearing as a result of) other Outlook add-ons, such as a security add-on by Trend Micro.

Here's another perk--Outlook should just scoop up this new version of Xobni if you upgrade from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010 without requiring you to reinstall. In fact, Xobni's single installer inserted the add-on to both versions of Outlook on our Windows 7 laptop.

New users who frequently search their in-box have much to gain from trying out the free version, and, confusing pricing structure aside, business professionals can benefit from the premium Xobni Plus (like autosuggestions when you compose) and from the server-based Xobni One "syncing" service that shares contact information between multiple Xobni accounts.

Security researchers have discovered flaws in common file formats, including .zip, which can be used to sneak malware onto computers by evading antivirus detection.

Eight vulnerabilities were found in .zip, supported by Microsoft Office, along with seven others in the .7zip, .rar, .cab and .gzip file formats, said Mario Vuksan, president of ReversingLabs Corp.

The vulnerabilities could be used by attackers to hide malware that could then be slipped past antivirus software via an e-mail attachment and used to compromise a computer, he said.

"The file goes straight through Gmail or Hotmail because it's a trusted format," he added. "Antivirus software can't see the hidden payload. Once the file is opened the payload (or malware) is on the system."

Vuksan said he and his partners in the research, Tomislav Pericin of ReversingLabs and AccessData Chief Operating Officer Brian Karney, had notified antivirus firms and other security vendors about the holes so they could update their products so they would not be vulnerable to attacks. The three were set to present their findings at the Black Hat Europe conference in Barcelona on Thursday.

w They also planned to release a tool called NyxEngine that companies can use to scan the files in the network for suspicious attributes that might indicate hidden malware, Vuksan said.

In addition to being used to attack a computer, the vulnerabilities could be used for steganography, or hiding secret messages in otherwise innocent-looking files, according to Vuksan. Typically, steganography involves messages hidden in images and photos.

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex