The Federal Government IT Dashboard

Ever wonder how the USA is spending your tax dollars on IT? All in all, it totals some $74 billion.

They have a new "dashboard" here, which is pretty useful, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Firefox 3.5: Great upgrade!

The new Firefox, version 3.5, was released last week, and I think it is a real winner.

PC World agrees :

Mozilla today released Firefox 3.5, which you can download from Mozilla's Web site. Firefox 3.5 boasts a number of significant changes--ranging from new ways to work with the browser features to under-the-hood improvements that Mozilla developers say will make the browser more than twice as fast as Firefox 3. Here are some of the new features you'll find in Firefox 3.5 ...

Read the rest of the review here

See the Cnet review here

Get Firefox 3.5 here

Windows 7 should be free!

Robin Harris of ZD-Net has an interesting proposition...

After the Vista fiasco, Microsoft owes its long-suffering customers more than a “screaming deal.” They’re owed an apology from Steve Ballmer - and a free copy of Vista SP3 Windows 7.

His basic position:

Vista was flawed from the beginning.

An interesting premise, though not likely to fly; but I like his thinking!

Check out his reasoning here.

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta now available

Ars Technica has news of the Microsoft Security Essentials Beta that is now available for free.

This is a replacement of the not-too-popular Windows Live Care anti-virus software (did anybody even use that?). It looks as though MS plans to have an anti-virus application that they may keep free, along the lines of Windows Defender in the spyware protection arena.

This would then make Security Essentials a competitor to the lower-end free AV solutions such as the free editions of AVG and Avast.

The Ars Technica story is here

Lifehacker has a great breakdown here

Go directly to the Microsoft Security Essentials beta site here

Windows Vista Service Pack 2

Microsoft is shipping second service pack for Windows Vista Service. I have loaded up this bad boy - so has our Tech Team Leader Bill Slater - and both of us found an easy install and noted performance improvement after applying the SP. Not "Wow!" performance increase, but definitely noticeable, with somewhat faster boot and shutdown times.

So consider the Windows Vista SP2 to be "recommended". You should be seeing it in your Windows Update service soon.

Find out about MS Windows Vista SP2 PC World here, and a download link here.

19 Years of Heavenly Images from the Hubble

IT - the Information Technology industry - likes the Hubble Telescope: Lots of cool technology there, lots of old technology that IT has kept running, and the ever-present IT relationship to astronomy.

With a relationship to "Givernment IT", eWeek has an excellent slide show of Hubble images ofrom over the years. Find it here.

Enjoy!

"Digitize Everything" - this just might make sense...

Mike Elgan, a writer for ComputerWorld (among others), makes an interesting case about "digitizing everything". By this he doesn't necessarily mean just documents; he means everything. 

The short version: Photograph everything you own, and upload it all to Evernote.

I have written about Evernote elsewhere on this blog, and it is a terrific product that would work really well for this purpose. 

Evernote isn't just some photo-gathering site; with Evernote you could put a key word in each photo that you dump up there, which would give you a fully searchable index of everything. Your own little Google of everything that is "you". Pretty neat concept.

Anyhow, read Mike Elgan's thoughts, in ComputerWorld, here. 

And...I just may have to do this...