This probably isn’t ready for primetime yet because it requires too much manual intervention but it’s a promising GreaseMonkey hack. MagicLine tracks where you’ve been, collecting loads of information like URLs, page titles, referrer, author, feeds and organizing it so that later, if you’re looking for something you’ve seen before, it can autocomplete based on any of this information.

Right now it modifies prefs.js with all this info and it will slow things down over time. Unless you really wanna play with this now, I’d squirrel it away for a future look-see … it sounds really promising.

The Firefox extension GreaseMonkey has had its security holes plugged and is now available in a 0.5 beta version.

Microsoft has finally made the download for the new SyncToy available.

What is it? I guess I’d call it Offline Folders on steroids or a superhuge Briefcase. It’s supposed to allow you to synchronize multiple folders across multiple machines, combining directories, handling renames and so on. I haven’t tried it yet but I’m about to.

Update: I don’t think it’ll replace Offline Folders because it’s a manual synchronization. Supposedly you can set it up to run automatically through XP’s Scheduled Tasks but that’s not the same as Offline Folders which allows you to specify that synchronization is to occur at logon and logoff. Not to mention the fact that if your connection disappears, when Offline Folders detects that your connection has been restored it will automatically sync up. SyncToy provides other features that makes it valuable, though. There are 5 “modes” which you can set up:

Synchronize: New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.

Echo: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.

Subscribe: Updated files on the right are copied to the left if the file name already exists on the left.

Contribute: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions.

Combine: New and updated files are copied both ways. Nothing happens to renamed and deleted files.

Worth the energy, I think.

engadget has this article on a Ubuntu Linux bundled on a 3GB USB drive for $135 Euros. Seems to me that $200 for a 3GB USB minidrive is quite a deal and you get a bootable Linux that stores all its stuff on the drive, at the same time!

Update: Fry’s has a 2.2G drive on sale for $80. One day sale.

Check out this article from Windows IT Pro. It gives a good introduction to the Windows Genuine Advantage program and a link to the Microsoft website that explains it. Briefly, all downloads from Microsoft, including Windows updates (but not including security updates, from what I hear) will require this. The good news: you don’t need to enter your 25-character product key. This is supposedly the way of the future!

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html

WiTopia is offering a free year of RADIUS service to the home user. This gives Enterprise-level authentication to the home WiFi user/administrator. Their free service provides RADIUS authentication for one wireless access point/router and up to 5 users. When a WiFi card attempts to connect with your router, it prompts the user for his/her userid and password, connects to WiTopia’s Radius server and authenticates the user.

Overkill? Probably. The biggest problem that I can see with it is that my Internet connection has to be up for me to even get onto my wireless network. But, still, it’s good technology. Window Secrets has this article on the service.