Stability and bug fixes marked yesterday's debut of Thunderbird 5, which like its better-known relation Firefox has adopted a rapid-release cycle. Version-number hawks will notice that Thunderbird 5, available to download for Windows, Mac, and Linux, has skipped version 4 entirely so it can keep pace with Firefox. The new Thunderbird also follows some of Firefox's feature leads by incorporating version 5 of the Mozilla Gecko engine, supporting dragging to reorder tabs, and adding the in-tab add-on manager that launched in Firefox 4 back in March.

By and large, the Thunderbird 5 release is more about keeping pace than forging ahead. The highlights of the release are not ground-breaking. The program will launch faster, Mozilla said in a blog post, and the company has also streamlined the account creation wizard for faster e-mail setup. File size will now be included next to e-mail attachment icons, and plug-ins support RSS feeds by default.

Two platform changes include theme fixes for Windows 7 and Vista, while Thunderbird 5 has dropped support for PowerPC on Macs. This follows the end of PowerPC support in version 4 of Firefox.

Also of note are significant improvements to the Thunderbird Conversations add-on. This extension, originally known as Gmail Conversation View, gives Thunderbird a Gmail feel, with e-mail organized along subject threads instead of solely by time stamp. Conversations makes it easy for those who are queasy about using Google's Web-based e-mail service to still get its unique management system.

Read the full changelog for Thunderbird 5 here.

Let's face it; your daily routine of checking Facebook, browsing RSS news, writing e-mails, sending tweets have evolved into quite the laundry list. Sweet Labs just released Pokki to sweeten up the task.

Pokki,  not to be confused with those delectable Japanese snacks, is a compact HTML5-based framework that allows users to view commonly used Web APIs in a pop-up shell.

As Web 2.0 continues to gain traction, companies are pursuing new ways to bridge the gap between the web app and the native desktop application. Sweet Labs has recognized that as simple and sleek these Web apps may be, many users still hold a strong bond with their desktop environment to run their applications. Many developers have already attempted to make the two worlds play friendlier, such as Seesmic, Adobe, and Mozilla. Sweet Labs, however, seems to be on the right track from an integrative and design standpoint.

Each Pokki resides in the taskbar. Clicking on a Pokki pops open a small window with the selected application. Although still in beta, Pokki includes limited numbers of popular apps like Facebook, RSS readers, Gmail, LivingSocial, and Twitter. Unlike a standard window application, Pokki's pop-up windows can neither expand nor be moved.

In fact, Pokki feels very much like thumbing through apps on a smartphone: although it doesn't quite offer the full, grandeur access to, say, Facebook's social options or Gmail's interface, it does pack the most critical functions into a compartmentalized design. Each icon displays a bubble indicating the number of updates or messages. Clicking on a feed or link opens up the respective app in a browser as well.

As the current release is still in beta stages, Pokki offers a sample model of what developers can do with the released SDK (I can already smell cloud-serviced music players brewing away).

What Sweet Labs has cooked up is a product that quickly feels native and strikes a nice balance between multitasking and simplicity. It's already reduced the hassle of opening several tabs, logging into various accounts and tab-scrolling in my daily routine by integrating essential Web apps into bite-size complements to my workspace.

If you have a sweet tooth for social networks, news, and daily bargains, come take a bite and try it out for yourself.

The Las Conchas wildfire, a 92,735-acre blaze extending around the community and national laboratory of Los Alamos, N.M., often moves faster than the officials who monitor it. That can be frustrating for people who want to see where the fire is burning.

But NASA has an automated answer for the impatient: the MODIS satellite. It records fire data, and the U.S. Forest Service packages it up so Google Earth users can get a rough but useful view of the fire's behavior.

Here's how to take a look. But first, I'll share a sobering NASA photo taken from the International Space Station on Monday, the second day of the fire.

It's a daunting image for anyone like me who knows the area and the scale involved. There are 752 people fighting the fire right now, including four bulldozers, 28 fire engines, and five helicopters. Since the Cerro Grande fire of 2000, which burned hundreds of Los Alamos homes and thousands of acres of Los Alamos National Laboratory property, the lab has taken new fire counter measures including more forest clearing and automatic fire-suppression systems. So far today, physical risks to the lab are lower than earlier in the week, LANL Director Charlie McMillan said.

OK, so here's how to get the live fire data. First, you'll have to install Google Earth. If you're not familiar with this software, it's basically an interface to look at the planet through satellite photography. It's got lots of overlays, some such as 3D buildings and geographic place names from Google, and countless others added by third parties that have a desire to show geographic information.

One of these third parties is the fire data. It's stored in a file format called KMZ, which is a compressed version of the KML technology. (Historical aside: KML began its life as Keyhole Markup Language, and Keyhole was the company that developed Google Earth before Google acquired it and turned KML into an industry standard.)

Anyway, next go to the Forest Service's Active Fire Mapping Program Web site.

Down toward the bottom, underneath the map, click on the "Download KMZ File" link and save the file in a place you'll remember. I give it a filename that records the date and time--"MODIS fire 2011-06-30 1442MDT.kmz"--because later you might want to compare snapshots from different times.

Next, switch over to Google Earth and select File, then Open. Open up your KMZ file. You should see a red rectangle appear around the United States and a bunch of yellow, orange, and red dots scattered where there are fires.

Of course, you have to zoom in to the area of interest yourself with the zoom slider to the upper right of the map view or by using a mouse scroll wheel. It's faster, though to type "Los Alamos, NM" into the search box in the the upper left corner of Google Earth. Typing the "87544" ZIP code will get you a broader view of the whole county.

When you get close, you'll see yellow, orange, and red squares. You might think the color coding corresponds to fire intensity, but that's only indirectly the case.

In fact, the colors correspond with how recently the satellite recorded fire in a particular area. Red means within the last six hours, it gets older from that until yellow, which is more than 24 hours.

If you download a new file later, you'll get a lot of visual clutter, because the old information is underneath. To hide the older layers, uncheck them in the "temporary places" folder underneath the "Places" section on the left of Google Earth.

You might also want to save the files. When you quit Google Earth, the software will ask you if you want to save your file to your "My Places" folder. You can, but you can also let the software forget it; you can open it again if you want to as long as you don't delete the original KMZ file you downloaded.

Below is a view I just created. You can of course use this to view any other fire data in the country, too.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

As many probably know, Final Cut Pro X--Apple's professional video-editing software--was recently released to mixed reviews.

For our CNET review of Apple's Final Cut Pro X, we decided to try something different. Normally our Download.com staff reviews software from a consumer perspective. This time, we called in a pro user from our offices in New York. Our very own Wilson G. Tang is a CNET and CBS producer, who has directed, shot, and edited award-winning pieces. He also hosts a daily technology and culture show on CNET called The 404. As a video and film professional, he has had almost a decade of experience with Final Cut Pro and other nonlinear video editing software on a day-to-day basis. In addition, he has had extensive experience in the field, using everything from film cameras to new digital cinema video cameras that shoot to memory cards.

As a professional in the field, Wilson reviewed the software from a professional's perspective. He compares the rebuilt-from-the ground-up Final Cut Pro X with former versions, pointing out in intricate detail the ways in which the new software is different (and not always better) than its predecessors. He was careful to point out to us that he likes the new version overall, but thinks that some professionals will probably be frustrated with many of the new changes. But he also said that those who are new to film editing might have an easier time learning the ropes, not having learned and internalized the ins and outs of previous versions of the software.

Check out CNET's full review of the new Final Cut Pro X.

Rdio, the popular on-demand music-streaming service with apps already available on most major platforms (Download: Mac | iPhone | Android), has just invaded Windows desktops. Now, desktop listeners can access their Rdio accounts without having to fire up a browser or log in. The new native app offers all of Rdio's basic listening and social discovery features, plus a couple of nice conveniences that you're sure to appreciate.

First, the new app can be controlled via media keys on a keyboard. These days, a lot of Windows peripherals come outfitted with Play, Pause, and Skip Track keys, and the app lets you take advantage of them to ease your listening experience.

Second, the app has a Match Collection function, which uses the metadata found in your iTunes or Windows Media libraries to populate your Rdio collection. It's a great way to jump-start your listening experience right after downloading.

Rdio for Windows is available now, free on Rdio.com, and is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, and 7. After a seven-day trial, Rdio Unlimited is $9.99 and Rdio Web is $4.99.

Surprising revelation: for the last month or so, I've been using a Linux-powered laptop as my primary work machine.

Linux, of course, is the free, open-source alternative to Windows and Mac operating systems. I've fiddled with it from time to time, but never considered it a viable replacement for either one. 

Mind you, I can't abandon Windows altogether. Not only do I write about it for a living, I also rely heavily on certain features and programs not currently available in Linux.

But this much I've learned: If you want to breathe new life into an old and/or slow PC, or you're just tired of paying for operating systems, Linux rocks.

My Linux "distro" of choice is Ubuntu, which is quick and easy to install and about as user-friendly as they come. Right out of the "box," it has everything you need to do, well, just about everything. There's Firefox for Web browsing, LibreOffice (an OpenOffice variant) for word processing and spreadsheets, Banshee Media Player for music, and even Ubuntu One for online backups (you get 2GB free!).

Beyond that, the Ubuntu Software Centre hooks you up with the vast library of open-source (read: also free) software.

The OS is admirably fast, too. I'm running it on a 3-year-old Acer laptop that came with Vista. It took forever to boot and was just maddeningly sluggish overall. With Ubuntu, it boots in about 60 seconds and runs very nimbly.

Wondering how Linux fares from a business perspective? Check out my related post: Linux Vs. Windows: Should Your Office Make the Switch? It outlines a lot more of Ubuntu's pros and cons.

In the meantime, hit the comments and share your thoughts on Linux. (I'm expecting an earful.) This probably goes without saying, but it's the best operating system money can't buy.

Bonus deal: The Verizon MiFi 4510L is a little slice of 4G mobile-hot-spot heaven (here's my review). It normally sells for $99.99, but Verizon is currently offering it for $49.99 shipped. That's with a two-year contract, of course, and monthly plans start at $49.99. But just like cheap printers that require pricey ink, at least you're getting a good deal on the hardware.

Originally posted at The Cheapskate

Hot off the heels of its iPad-optimized app release, Skype, the popular VoIP service, makes another splash with an update for its Android-toting user base. Skype for Android has jumped to version 2.0, and at long last, it lets Android users make and receive video calls--well, it lets a few of them anyway. See, the new video-calling capability is, at the moment, only available to users running Android version 2.3 on the following devices: HTC Desire S, Sony Ericsson Xperia neo and pro, and the Google Nexus S. If you're counting, that's only four devices. While the new feature is indeed a big deal, that's still only a very small contingent of Android users who have something to be excited about today. For the rest of us, we'll have to wait until the folks at Skype make the functionality compatible with the rest of the gamut of Android devices.

From the new app, users can make video calls just as easily as on the desktop version. They simply have to go to a contact and hit the Skype Video Call button. While in a video call a user has the option to Mute, End, or access the video menu. If a regular voice call comes in (not through Skype), and the user accepts, the Skype call will be placed on hold. Video quality will depend upon network conditions, with a strong Wi-Fi connection presumably being optimal.

Video calling isn't the only change, however. The new Skype 2.0 for Android also has a completely updated look and feel. Now, the application launches to a cleanly designed Home screen with icons for all your basic functions. You can also change your mood message (Skype's version of a status update) right from the top of the Home screen. We definitely prefer it to the old, tabbed interface.

Weighing approximately 10MB, plus another 15MB for user account data (for an average user), the new application is a hefty one. Fortunately, Skype 2.0 still lets you install to your phone's SD card.

With Skype's newly updated app along with Qik's April announcement of cross-platform video calling, it appears Apple's FaceTime may just have a fight on its hands.