Technically Speaking

Here is a quick and easy hack for speeding up your browsing sessions using FireFox and your broadband connection. It will basically lets Firefox make multiple request for data concurrently.

1.Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”

Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

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I think the hack worked for me, I opened one of my hefty folders by doing a “Open in Tabs”, I do this quite often, and it really seemed to open a lot faster than normal. I hope it works for you too.

British design engineer Glynne Bowsher and his team has nearly completed their technologically advance steam-powered automobile. Their hopes is to smash the land speed record in the British Steam Car Challenge (BSCC). Not only that, they are hoping hat the vehicle in turn will spur the general public’s interest in cleanly powered vehicles.

Fuels which do not “rot” the environment usually bring to mind images of gently humming electric cars, clean hydrogen, natural gas, or hithane - a concoction of hydrogen and methane.

The most promising, believes Mr Bowsher, is either nuclear or hydrogen fuel.

The public is reluctant to explore nuclear; but researchers and engineers across the world are exploring how best to generate and, more importantly, store hydrogen fuel, one of the main barriers to its widespread use.

Nine European cities are taking part in a pilot scheme to use hydrogen fuelled buses on certain routes, for instance.

But until a viable mass-scale way of storing and distributing hydrogen effectively is developed, it remains limited in use.

Mr Bowsher believes that until then, designers could look to Inspiration for a different take on good old steam.

The key to its potential is the difference between internal and external combustion technologies.

External combustion engines - like steam ones - hold several advantages over internal ones.

They have the potential to produce fewer harmful nitrogen oxides (NOx) than conventional cars which use internal combustion engines.

Although steam engines still need to burn hydrocarbon-based fuels like petrol and diesel, which in turn release carbon dioxide, external combustion engines can control the release and the production of CO2 more efficiently.

And because such engines can work well at lower peak temperatures and pressures, the creation of NOx compounds can be almost negligible.

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Current performance metrics are; Performance: Maximum speed 200+ mph (320km/h); Initial acceleration: 0.52G. The current record stands at 763 mph, or Mach 1.02, set by Andy Green in the Thrust SSC II, in 1997. Bowsher’s design will have to nearly quadruple its maximum speed in order to break the record. I suppose he is a good candidate to do it for he worked on the Thrust SSC II and designed the Thrust SSC that set the land speed record in 1983 at 633 mph. Bowsher has designed his vehicle from the ground up.
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I have heard the news earlier today and iit is really hard to fathom the enormous power of nature. This tsunami has taken more than 13,773 lives at present count and the count is rising.

The tsunami waves were triggered by an 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, rearing up into walls of water as high as 10 meters (30 feet) as they hit shallow coastlines in south and south-east Asia.

The earthquake hit at 6:58 a.m.; the tsunami came as much as 2 1/2 hours later, without warning, on a morning of crystal blue skies. Sunbathers and snorkelers, cars and cottages, fishing boats and even a lighthouse were swept away.

I am seeing now that the quake was measured to be 9.0. It is the worst recorded in over 40 years but not surprisingly it was another product of the “Ring of Fire”.

I did a little research on tsunamis and found that they can be generated a number of ways… Earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions, and even the impact of cosmic bodies, such as meteorites, can generate tsunamis. I think that the most interesting one and probably the most common one is the earthquake generated tsunami. Here are some facts on the phenomena and following are some tips to survive them although they seem a little naive.

Tsunamis can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water. Tectonic earthquakes are a particular kind of earthquake that are associated with the earth’s crustal deformation; when these earthquakes occur beneath the sea, the water above the deformed area is displaced from its equilibrium position. Waves are formed as the displaced water mass, which acts under the influence of gravity, attempts to regain its equilibrium. When large areas of the sea floor elevate or subside, a tsunami can be created.

Large vertical movements of the earth’s crust can occur at plate boundaries. Plates interact along these boundaries called faults. Around the margins of the Pacific Ocean, for example, denser oceanic plates slip under continental plates in a process known as subduction. Subduction earthquakes are particularly effective in generating tsunamis.

This simulation (2 MB) of the 1993 Hokkaido earthquake-generated tsunami, developed by Takeyuki Takahashi of the Disaster Control Research Center, Tohoku University, Japan, shows the initial water-surface profile over the source area and the subsequent wave propagation away from the source. Areas in blue represent a water surface that is lower than the mean water level, while areas in red represent an elevated water surface. The initial water-surface profile, as shown in this image, reflects a large, long uplifted area of the sea floor lying to the west (left) of Okushiri Island, with a much smaller subsided area immediately adjacent to the southwest corner of Okushiri.

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Satellite radio is one of the hottest things out there now and especially now with Howard Sterns making a move Sirius in the near future Satellite Radio subscriptions will soar to new heights. But if Sirius and Apple were to make a Satellite iPod, so the masses can have a nice little gadget to carry with them everywhere and enjoy their music, this would be the icing on the cake for everyone. Sirius would increase their sales, Apple will too, and of course the music lovers will be loving this as well.

Rumors that Sirius and Apple Computer Inc. (Research) were going to announce next month at the Consumer Electronics Show or MacWorld a deal to bundle iPods with satellite radio have added to the sector’s buzz.

Sirius and Apple declined comment on the rumors, but analysts said it seemed technologically unfeasible right now.

“I don’t believe Sirius’ chip set is at the point where it can go into an iPod. It’s the size of a credit card, and an iPod would need a chip set the size of a thumb nail,” said April Horace, a Janco Partners analyst.

That’s not to say the industry is not thinking about it. After launching its wearable MyFi device in October, XM chief executive Hugh Panero said he believed one day a portable satellite player would be combined with a device like an iPod.

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Now the question is; Is this some more some and mirrors to not get people about the possible upcoming product? We have seen it before with the iPod photo, didn’t we? I think that we will be seeing this Satellite iPod real soon.

Earlier this week, the MPAA started its legal attack against the BitTorrent server operators. The results of the attack are swift, for not even a week has past and Slashdot reports that people have been writing in: “Without providing a reason, both of these sites have shut down: SuprNova.org and TorrentBits.org.”

Suprnova’s demise as a BitTorrent clearing house coincides with increasing legal pressure in America and Europe against P2P-enabled piracy. In the last week the Movie Picture Ass. of America signalled its intention to pursue the P2P server operators in a new front in its war internet movie pirates. Also, a popular BitTorrent site in Finland was raided by police, and an eDonkey site in the Netherlands was raided and shut down.

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It is said that the game plan for the MPAA was to go after the illegal users of BitTorrent other than the BitTorrent technology itself. So any guesses where we will be next using BitTorrent? Will BitTorrent survive?

NIAC (NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts), is looking into te possibility of a superconducting magnetic radiation shielding system to supplement (or replace) traditional passive shielding. Jeffery Hoffman, a former astronaut, is heading up the research funded by NASA.

The idea of using a magnetic field to shield a craft from radiation is not new; as Dr. Hoffman points out “the Earth has been doing it for billions of years!” Using magnetic shielding was proposed in the late 1960’s, but not pursued after plans for further space exporation were scrapped.

Two types of radiation need to be addressed, according to William S. Higgins, an engineering physicist who works on radiation safety at Fermilab, the particle accelerator near Chicago, IL:

* Solar flare protons (which would come in bursts following a solar flare)
* Galactic cosmic rays (a continuous background radiation)

The easiest way to protect against this radiation is to absorb it. However, such shielding can be massive, and cosmic rays can interact with the shielding and create secondary charged particles, worsening the situation. The primary benefit of using magnetic shielding is to save on the mass required for traditional absorption technologies. The mass of the spacecraft, which must be lifted off from the Earth and placed in orbit, directly drives the cost of space systems. Reducing the amount of mass would make space exploration more affordable and therefore more sustainable over the long term.

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The Earth naturally protects us through the same method so logically the idea should work. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS),is scheduled to be tested at the ISS, results will give insight as to what it will take to maintain a magnetic field of considerable strength and the near-absolute zero temperatures.

The project will be tackled in two phases.

Phase I research studies the shielding efficiency of the baseline design, and would begin conceptual systems design. Phase II would provide a detailed comparison of magnetic shielding with traditional passive absorption technologies, and detail how to integrate the magnetic shield into a spacecraft.

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CIB is the name of the latest storage system IBM is working on. The main purpose behind the idea is to provide a space saving yet easily configurable medium for mass storage of data. The CIB can be simply stacked together, as if you are building a wall, and they will intelligently work together as one storage unit.

CIB is an effort to make highly reliable storage systems from less-reliable standard components, said Robert Gardner, a research center staff member and co-leader of the development project at IBM. The storage units are literally designed as square bricks that can be assembled into large, Rubik’s Cube-like blocks.

Each brick has its own CPU, memory, cache and networking connections. This makes the brick “appliance-like and easy to add by end-users,” Gardner said.

Individual bricks can have varying amounts of storage capacity of up to 80 GB. The bricks can be assembled into systems containing terabytes or even petabytes of storage capacity.

Rather than using typical wire prongs or plugs, the bricks are connected with a novel technology called “capacitive coupling,” in which one block is mated to the next through a conductive plate. Gardner displayed two different prototype couplers, one made of Mylar and the other of thin ceramic. The couplers are actually able to transmit data through the extremely thin layer of air between one brick and the next., Gardner said.

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IBM has also developed a water cooling system, IceCube technology, to answer the cooling needs of the bricks. By using water cooling, IBM storage bricks can save up to 7 times the floor space needed for the equivalent in traditional storage setups. The experimental IceCube technology may also be release as a separate product. No timelines were given as to when we may see these things in production.

The spin Hall Effect, named after American physicist Edwin Hall, was discovered in 1879. Today, with the coming of semi-conductors, the Hall effect is used in a variety of devices. This Hall effect is produced by the charge of an electron. There is another way to produce the effect and that is through the spin of an electron.

The Hall effect comes in two varieties itself: spin and charge.

In 1879, when Edwin Hall was monitoring an electric current — that is, a moving charge — in a magnetic field, he observed a measurable voltage.

He attributed the effect to the force a magnetic field exerts on moving charge carriers, pushing them to one side of the conductor and building up charge on that side.

The charge buildup ultimately balances the magnetic force, producing a measurable voltage between opposite sides of the conductor.

Today’s sensors and electronics make liberal use of this plain-vanilla “Hall effect.”

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The spin Hall Effect was first predicted in 1971 by Russian physicists M.I. D’yakonov and V. I. Perel; they predicted that current-carrying electrons with opposite spins would move toward opposite sides of a semiconductor wire. The prediction hasn’t been proved/observed until now (2004).

Potential applications of the spin Hall effect may include “sensing technologies, potential pathways towards shuttling spin information in semiconductors, as well as quantum computing and quantum communication,” said Awschalom, who directs the UCSB Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation.

But he added, “The most exciting aspect of this finding is that you don’t know exactly where it’s going to lead.”

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Lexar introduces it’s new form factor in flash memory cards. It is designed for universal and superior interoperability to bring next generation storage, connectivity and utility products to a broad variety of computing, consumer electronics and mobile electronics devices. There really isn’t anything new about the memory itself, this all seems to be about the packaging. The card will be able to fit into any industry standard USB Type A socket, which will make the need for card readers nonexistent.

Lexar’s USB FlashCard will be the first product based on the new form factor. The USB FlashCard will offer universal plug and play connectivity with all modern operating systems leveraging the ubiquity of the USB interface. Lexar plans to introduce Full-Speed USB versions in 16MB, 32MB and 64MB capacities as well as Hi-Speed USB versions in 64MB, 128MB, 256MB, 512MB and 1GB capacities with a high performance 60MB/s interface speed in 2005.

“Lexar’s USB FlashCard will offer unparalleled ease of use by leveraging the pervasive USB interface”, said Petro Estakhri, Chief Technology Officer, Lexar. “Moving forward, our intent is to leverage the open standard to create technology that is feature rich in terms of security, provides an easy interface and is built on an environmental design that meets general standards for almost all of today’s computing, consumer and mobile electronics devices using non-volatile storage.”

The USB FlashCard is designed to fit into any industry standard USB Type A socket. Lexar is working with connector manufacturers to offer an extended USB Type A socket to be used in consumer electronics devices and mobile applications such as digital still cameras and handheld computers. The USB FlashCard sockets would accommodate the USB FlashCard inside of a camera similar in use to other forms of flash memory cards.

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Yahoo in partnership with X1 Technologies, will be entering the Desktop Search arena, trying to go head-to-head with Google. The Yahoo desktop search tool will search the contents of the user’s personal hard drive, including e-mail, Word documents, PDF files, music and photos. Yahoo plans to continue to build upon the tool by introducing other features in future iterations; such as navigation for Yahoo’s instant messenger archives, address book and free e-mail service. One thing that will make Yahoo stand out over Google is that Yahoo its product can sift through more than 225 different data types, including many formats that Google’s desktop search can’t index yet. January of 2005 will be the earliest we can check the tool out.

Desktop search, which helps excavate information buried on computer hard drives, is seen as the next frontier in the booming search sector that has generated billions in revenues from ads generated by Web search queries.

Yahoo’s product will use licensed technology from Pasadena, California-based X1 Technologies Inc. to help users search e-mail and a variety of files — from photos and music to PDF-format documents — on their hard drives.

Those search capabilities also will be integrated with Yahoo’s own Web search technology, said Jeff Weiner, senior vice president of Yahoo’s search and marketplace business.

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Sources Yahoo and CNet

Toyota has a vision of personal vehicles for the 21st century. Personal mobility devices, concept vehicles and helper robots, will be on display at the Toyota stand at the Expo 2005 in Aichi, Japan, in March 2005.

Built using environmentally friendly plant-based materials, the single passenger unit is equipped with intelligent transport system technologies that allow for safe autopilot driving in specially equipped lanes.

The model allows the user to make tight on-the-spot turns, move upright amongst other people at low speeds and can be easily switched into a reclining position at higher speeds.

Body colours can be customized to suit individual preferences and a personal recognition system offers both information and music.

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Toyota seems to be steering their innovative juices towards the advancement of wearable exoskeletons. I’m sure the interest for these types of inventions are high in the military arena, but will there be a demand in the civilian sector? The description of these devices give me the thought that the Segway is actually making good on its promise to revolutionize the world. The ideas in the Toyota prototypes enhance some of the already used mobility ideas by putting a coolness factor to them. Gone are the days of the motorized wheelchair, soon we will see the mobility challenged moving in style.

If Mozilla’s track record with Firefox means anything then I would say that they have a good chance of taking a nice portion of converters. Last night, Mozilla launched a full version of their email client, Thunderbird 1.0. With it, Mozilla is hoping for a great acceptance from the masses. Check out some of the things Thunderbird has to offer…

Among its features, Thunderbird 1.0 provides a user-controlled spam filter, a built-in RSS reader and new approaches for managing and filtering through e-mail messages. It also can be used as a client for a range of popular, Web-based e-mail services such as the premium version of Yahoo Mail and Google Inc.’s Gmail that support POP3, MacGregor said.

But the foundation isn’t leaving the enterprise untouched. MacGregor said Mozilla plans to retool the application with enterprise-specific features in future versions. Currently, because it supports IMAP, Thunderbird works as an e-mail client with Microsoft’s popular Exchange server, MacGregor said.

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Once again, the main thing that Mozilla is offering is a safer way to interact with the web. If you are concerned about your presence on the web then Mozilla’s products are a must for you.

You can go here to “Reclaim Your Inbox“

A newly discovered bug in the implementation of Javascript allows attackers to utilize the “Infinite Array Sort Denial Of Service Vulnerability”. The exploit can target not only Internet Explorer, but virtually all known browsers that read Javascript; Mozilla Browser, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Apple Safari.

The bug has been called the Infinite Array Sort Denial Of Service Vulnerability and causes the affected browsers to execute an infinite JavaScript array sort. That operation in turn effectively causes a DoS on the browser in question and causes it to crash by exhausting stack memory.

At present there are no confirmed exploits in the wild that expand the vulnerability to execute malicious code, though that may only be a matter of time.

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The bug has been reported to the various browser distributors but as of yet, there are no patches for the flaw.

That is if your system is an unpatched Windows XP SP1 system. A study by USA Today and Avantgarde shows just how easily and quickly your machine can by hijacked if left on the net unprotected.

Simply connecting to the Internet — and doing nothing else — exposes your PC to non-stop, automated break-in attempts by intruders looking to take control of your machine surreptitiously.

While most break-in tries fail, an unprotected PC can get hijacked within minutes of accessing the Internet. Once hijacked, it is likely to get grouped with other compromised PCs to dispense spam, conduct denial-of-service attacks or carry out identity-theft scams.

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The test did not measure Web attacks that require user participation, namely spyware, which gets spread by visiting contagious Web sites, or e-mail viruses, which proliferate via e-mail attachments.

However, the results vividly illustrate how automated cyberattacks have come to saturate the Internet with malicious programs designed to take the quickest route to break into your PC: through security weaknesses in the PC operating system.

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“Avantgarde has the statistics in their abstract. Stats of note: Although Macs and PC’s got hit with equal opportunity, the XP SP1 machine was hit with 5 LSASS and 4 DCOM exploits while the Mac remained clean. The Linux desktop also was impenetrable, but only was only targeted by 0.26% of all attacks.”

Source: Slashdot

NASA was just delivered its new comet exploring spacecraft named Deep Impact. This vessel will be launched on Dec. 30 of this year and if all goes well it will rendevouz with the comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005. The spacecraft is designed to deliver a 820-lb hunk of copper, dubbed “hammer”, the size of a bathtub, to the commet at a velocity of 23,000 mph. The “hammer” is to expose the inner most materials of the comet so that scientists can discover the composition of it and also hopefully predict the comet’s past and origins.

If all goes well, an 820-pound copper “hammer” the size of a bathtub will separate from its mother ship and, 24 hours later, smash into the comet’s icy nucleus at about 23,000 mph.

“It’s bound to be a blast,” said Lucy McFadden, a University of Maryland astronomer and member of the Deep Impact team.

The high-speed impact will wallop the pickle-shaped comet with energy equivalent to 4.8 tons of TNT, said Michael A’Hearn, another UM astronomer and principal investigator on the $311 million mission.

Nobody’s sure what will happen next. There’s a small chance the impactor will blow the 2-½-mile-long comet to smithereens, or simply bore through it like a bullet through a snowball. More likely, scientists say, it will blast open a crater the size of a football stadium. It all depends on what Tempel 1 is made of, and how sturdily it is composed.

Which is exactly what scientists hope to learn.

The blast also will reveal the comet’s interior chemistry and nail down more precisely what conditions were like when it formed at the solar system’s birth more than 4.5 billion years ago.

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Mayo Clinic gynecologists have discovered a better, cheaper, and less evasive way to perform female sterilizations. The technique involves inserting a nickel-titanium and stainless steel springlike device into the fallopian tubes. The device will in turn cause the body to produce scar tissue at the site of the device and thus block the tube. The blockage will be complete in roughly 12 weeks. This method requires minimal sedation and no surgical incision, as the surgeon enters via the vagina. It also allows quick recovery.

“Patients love it,” says Abimbola Famuyide, M.B.B.S., Mayo Clinic gynecologic surgeon, who conducted the cost-comparison study. “There are minimal side effects. Patients typically leave the hospital within an hour, and they are back to work the next day.”

Dr. Famuyide and colleagues found that hysteroscopic sterilization costs patients approximately $500 less on their medical bills compared to the traditional method of female sterilization, laparoscopic tubal ligation, surgery requiring an abdominal incision with general anesthesia.

The study found the hysteroscopic method is less expensive due to the following factors:

* Quicker recovery — this method requires either no time in recovery or much less time in the hospital recovery room and/or the outpatient floor than laparoscopic tubal ligation, which also means less need for nursing care or ongoing pain control.

* Less expensive pharmacy charges — this method requires fewer drugs to administer.

The study was conducted retrospectively via a comparative cost analysis of the aforementioned two methods of female sterilization performed on women ages 27 to 45 who requested permanent sterilization at Mayo Clinic from January to December 2003. The analysis included 43 cases of hysteroscopic sterilization and 44 cases of laparoscopic tubal ligation. The investigators reviewed billing records using cost algorithms on data from Mayo Clinic’s Cost Data Warehouse. The average cost for the hysteroscopic sterilization was $2,314, versus $2,859 for the tubal ligation.

Dr. Famuyide expects that patients will be able to further increase their savings by choosing hysteroscopic sterilization in the future, as the procedure moves out of the hospital setting to the physician’s office.

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For more info visit MayoClinic.com.

A group of US scientists believe that they have found the scientific reason behind the ability of lizards to walk on water. The theory going into the study was that the lizard was exerting so much force with each step that the water gave back the same amount allowing the lizard to stay on top of the surface. But there is more to that… “What we didn’t expect to see was very large medio-lateral forces; forces pretty much to the side of the lizards.”

The study, which was reported recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveals how a large upward force is produced every time the lizard slaps its foot down into the water.

This keeps the animal from sinking straight down into the liquid. But just like we tend to teeter forward when we run on a soft surface such as sand, the lizard would also stumble forward unless it had a mechanism for stabilising itself.

And this is where the sideways force comes in - and it is almost as strong as the initial slap down.

The findings are interesting because most of what we know about how animals with legs move is based on studies of them travelling across solid surfaces.

Animals that run on land with two legs, such as birds and humans, have little force directed out towards the sides. The basilisk lizard is very different.

“We were wondering why this is actually happening,” Dr Hsieh added.

“Our guess on this is that it appears to help maintain stability… as they’re running across water; they’re constantly tripping.

“It’s a matter of catching themselves and keeping themselves upright before they actually fall over.”

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The setup of the experiment is pretty interesting as well.

The experimental set-up used a small track, around a metre in length, with small, silver-covered reflective particles dropped in the test-tank water.

A laser light was then shone through the water, making the particles reflect. This allowed the scientists to visualise fluid flow induced by foot movements and to calculate the forces the lizards were producing.

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It is amazing what they can do with lasers these days, heh?

Edward C Baig of USA TODAY fame, lists his top picks for gadgets, gizmos and software for 2004. To no surprise Apple, Google and Mozilla all have made the list with Apple and Google having two products each in it. Most of the items listed in the complete list would make great holiday presents, provided that they are in your budget. The software is free so you can’t beat that.

•Apple iMac. This is the most exquisite Mac yet, and that’s saying a lot. The whole computer, not just the display, appears to float on an aluminum stand. That’s because the guts of the machine - 80-gigabyte or 160-gigabyte hard drive, memory, robust “G5″ processor, etc. - are inside a 2-inch flat-panel display. There are two vibrant wide-screen display models, 17 or 20 inches. You can twist or tilt the display to any reasonable viewing angle.

Also hidden inside: a drive for handling CDs or DVDs. Disks are loaded into a slot on the side of the display. The back of the computer is equally elegant. You can loosen three screws to remove the cover to add, say, extra memory or a wireless networking card. All the connectors you’d need are neatly aligned on the outside. To reduce clutter, the power cord slips through a hole on the back of the aluminum stand. And you can tuck the keyboard under the display and out of the way. Cost: $1,299 to $1,899.

•Apple iPod Photo. How do you make the best-of-breed portable digital music player even better? Add up to 25,000 pictures (and in some instances album art) to the mix. The latest iPod Photo models include a cable that lets you view slide shows on a TV, backed by a soundtrack. Or you can peek on the device’s crisp 2-inch color display while scrolling through images by sliding your finger across a click wheel. There are a few drawbacks, including price ($499 to $599, for 40-GB and 60-GB versions) and the fact that you cannot directly transfer pictures from a digital camera or memory card to the iPod.

•Google Desktop Search. Funny how Google’s “beta,” or not-quite-finished, products outshine “final” offerings from most other companies. Example No. 1 is Google’s Desktop Search. Anyone who is anyone leans on Google for Web searches. But what about searching your hard drive? Google’s free Desktop Search tool, also in beta, can perform the task quickly.

When first downloaded, Google’s Desktop Search software “indexes” compatible files, e-mail and any Web pages you previously viewed in Internet Explorer. Later, when Google spits out search results, you can view these Web pages again, even if you are offline or the page is no longer available. That’s because the pages and other files Google indexes are stored, or “cached.” Google can search plain text, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, along with Outlook (and Outlook Express) mail and AOL Instant Messenger chat sessions. Other file types are in the works.

•Google Gmail. The beauty of Google’s free, and invitation-only (while in “beta”), Web-based Gmail service is the amount of storage you get - a humongous 1,000 megabytes (or 1 GB), about 500 times the capacity of Microsoft’s rival Hotmail e-mail service when Gmail first arrived. (Perhaps in response, Hotmail and Yahoo recently beefed up storage capacities to 250 MB.) That means you’ll likely never have to discard any old mail. Also, messages are grouped with all their replies, making them easier to find.

Be aware of the tradeoff: You’ll have to put up with targeted advertising, though there are no pop-ups. Google recently added free POP e-mail access. You can now view Gmail messages using an e-mail program such as Microsoft Outlook or a handheld device such as a BlackBerry.

•Mozilla Firefox. The cyber-rogues who unleash viruses at your computer often attack vulnerabilities inside Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser. That’s why alternative browsers are looking so good. Among the best: Firefox, from the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. It was built with security in mind. This sly fox is fast (switching programs is a breeze), free and uncluttered.

Among the available features are “extensions” and “themes” - custom add-ons that boost functionality and alter the browser’s look and feel. Still, you might run into cases where the sites you visit want you to use IE.

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The Google Scholar site is a new search tool Google released yesterday. The tool’s purpose is to help search academic research filed within Google’s massive index. Through specialized algorithms this is the first attempt to separate out specific content in Google’s system. If the beta site is successful, Google could start offering custom search sites on specified topics in the very near future.

Although Google already had been indexing the reams of academic research online, the company hadn’t been able to separate the scholarly content from commercial Web sites.

By focusing on the citations contained in academic papers, Google also engineered its new system to provide a list of potentially helpful material available at libraries and other offline sources.

The scholarly search effort continues Google’s effort to probe even deeper into content available online and offline. Last month, Google expanded a program that invites publishers to scan their books into the search engine’s index, enabling people to peek at the contents online before deciding whether to buy a copy.

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The word on the street is that AOL, last owners of Netscape’s technology, has restarted the browser’s development. The newest version will be based on Firefox. A prototype of the new Netscape will debut on November 30, but only a handful of beta testers will be able to review it.

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But Firefox’s surging popularity has breathed new life into Netscape. Although AOL could not yet comment on what to expect in the prototype, the revamped browser will likely extend Firefox’s feature set with Netscape-specific extensions and retain Netscape’s traditional green user interface.

AOL announced the upcoming prototype in a message to Netscape users, even taking a swipe at Internet Explorer for its recent security woes.

“While other browsers have seen little improvement over recent years — except frequent patches for security leaks — we have consistently added new features to save you time and to make the most out your time online,” the Netscape product team wrote. “As a part of our next evolutionary step, we have developed this new Browser Prototype, which could change the way the world masters the web.”

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Users interested in testing the Netscape prototype can pre-register by visiting netscape.com and entering the registration code: prototype1104.