Desktop software

Google issued a course correction for the stable version of Chrome on Wednesday. In addition to JavaScript sluggishness and Java plug-in issues introduced in the previous version, Google also made three critical security patches to its browser.

The last version of Google Chrome stable, version 4.1.249.1059, was using an incorrect path for version 6 update 20 of Sun's Java plug-in. It was also, according to Google, significantly slower than the second-to-last update, version 4.1.249.1045. Both of those have been corrected in the current release.

The three security fixes address a cross-origin bypass in … Read more

The speedy Carakan JavaScript engine has finally been added to the stable version of Opera on the Mac. Combined with Opera's extensive toolbox, an interface refresh, Growl support, and Opera Link syncing--hello, Opera Mini on the iPhone--Opera should be a top contender for best Mac browser.

Take a tour of the new Opera in this First Look video, and tell me in the comments below which browser is your favorite for the Mac.

It's news enough to make a Mac-using Opera fan sing: the browser has officially ditched its old JavaScript engine Futhark for the speedy new Carakan. Available for both Intel and PowerPC, the final version of Opera 10.52 for Mac comes 11 days after the second beta, although two months after the public encountered the first Mac beta of Carakan.

Besides the impressively fast JavaScript engine, which Opera claims is 10 times faster than the previous Mac version, the new browser comes with an interface overhaul and has been completely rebuilt in Cocoa. There's Growl and multitouch trackpad … Read more

Adobe Systems released Lightroom 2.7 on Tuesday night for Windows and Mac, adding support for raw images from an expected range of newer cameras: Canon's Rebel T2i, Sony's Alpha A450, Panasonic's Lumix DMC-G2 and G10, Olympus' E-PL1, and some medium-format models from Leaf and Mamiya.

The company's standard procedure has been to issue minor updates to let the photo-editing and cataloging software handle the proprietary raw image formats from higher-end cameras. Lightroom 2.7 and the corresponding version 5.7 plug-in for Photoshop CS4 users are available at Adobe's download site, and the DNG … Read more

The stable build of Google Chrome has updated, introducing seven security patches to the browser. Version 4.1.249.1059 for Windows incorporates four high-priority security fixes and three medium-priority ones.

The high-priority fixes, introduced Tuesday, correct type confusion errors with forums, memory corruption in the V8 JavaScript engine bindings, cross-site scripting vulnerabilities on the Chrome downloads page, and HTTP request errors. The first two corrections earned user "kuzzcc" $500 each in Google Chrome's vulnerability discovery rewards program.

The medium-priority errors involved local file reference through developer tools, cross-site scripting in chrome://net-internals, and the discovery that … Read more

With a surprise boost from Microsoft, the promise of rich typography on the Web just got a big step closer to reality.

The software company's involvement emerged Monday with sponsorship of a newer effort at the World Wide Web Consortium to standardize Web-based fonts with technology called the Web Open Font Format (WOFF). It's a fresh indicator of Microsoft's serious engagement with new Web standards--and it's a big boost for designers' attempts to stretch the Web beyond just the few typefaces that today can be expected to be already installed on people's computers.

It's … Read more

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 … Read more

What happens to the MacBook in the age of the iPad? It survives, of course, but is less important than it was.

The most obvious indicator is Apple Store real estate. At my local Apple store in Southern California, iPads have unceremoniously pushed all MacBooks off one large display table at the very front of the store. Not an earth-shattering development but nonetheless indicative of what's really important for Apple right now: the iPad is front and center.

Then there are some less visible, less verifiable things going on that, though speculative, seem increasingly likely to happen. As David Carnoy wrote, … Read more

You've had months now of teasers and gee-whiz video demos of new features and technologies that Adobe Systems is planning to debut in Creative Suite 5, and there'll be boatloads of people telling you about them over the next 30 days before it ships (here's our summary of Photoshop's new features). But for some of us, the things that Adobe hasn't fixed, and which don't merit viral videos, remain sources of immense frustration.

At the top of my list are the complete lack of upgrade and migration tools. Unlike most applications, Adobe doesn't even provide the option to simply upgrade an existing installation. I know a lot of people need to keep multiple versions of the apps on their systems--I'm one of them--but there are a lot of people who don't, and Adobe's responsible for an amazing amount of hard disk clutter. Furthermore, transferring your settings, presets, Dreamweaver Snippets, Bridge Favorites, and so on is a major pain.

In Photoshop, for example, you have to remember to export styles, Actions, tool presets and other settings before you can manually import them into the newer version, or even into a different installation of the same version. With customization pervading every aspect of the applications, doing this individually for each type of tool is tedious at best. And some things, such as Photoshop's New Document presets and Bridge's Favorites can't be transferred at all as far as I can tell. I expect more from a product that costs almost $700; at the price of the Master Collection, with the concomitant increase in the number of settings you'll want to transfer, well, I'd be pretty annoyed. (We won't really know if the company has fixed the poorly designed updater until the suite's been out for a bit.)

I stress this because there's still time for Adobe to--at the very least--write some scripts to handle settings migration before the product ships. My last communication from them on the subject said that migration tools plans were still "in flux," and I urge everyone who's considering the upgrade to put some pressure on the company to do something about it.… Read more