From CNET News.com: Twitter's post-purchase integration of Summize is now complete. On Thursday the company added the on-page search tool to every user's Twitter home page after having flipped it on for select users during the past two months.

Below the new search box, which sits in the middle-right hand section of the page, are terms that are trending on the service. The search tool also lets users save queries for later use, something that was previously only available on desktop Twitter clients or by bookmarking queries in your browser.

One big difference from Twitter's standalone search page (which still exists), is that results are presented just like normal tweets, replies, and direct messages, and contained within the boundaries of where users are have been trained to look. With the recent addition of the advertising space in the top right-hand corner, this presentation style could lead to that area being dedicated to real advertisements that third party companies have paid for. The company has already done this on the Japanese version of its service, but has yet to do on other localizations.

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From DailyTech: According to a new research paper published by Forrester, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7 is still in heavy use in the enterprise environment. However, the report shows that Mozilla Firefox is steadily gaining in browser market share. Firefox was called the most risky business app in a Bit9 study last year.

Forrester reports that both Google Chrome and Apple Safari are seeing increased adoption with enterprise users as well. The reason for the increased adoption according to the research paper is that business users are relying "more heavily on the Internet and Web-based tools to perform their functions" writes paper author Sheri McLeish.

McLeish wrote, "As more and more companies look to SaaS (software-as-a-service) solutions and the Web delivers richer media, firms need to rethink their browser choices in concert with the Web-based apps they deploy. Information and knowledge management (I&KM) pros must start to leverage today’s browser innovations like faster processing, tabs, and new search features to improve information worker productivity."

The survey conducted by Forrester polled a pool of 51,913 enterprise-client users and was conducted in the first half of 2008. The study showed that IE6 was the dominant browser for enterprise users on a month-by-month basis for the entire year with a market share of 66.6% in July 2008 dropping to 60.2% in December 2008.

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From DailyTech: When Windows Home Server launched, it was aimed at the home user who wanted a platform to serve media to different connected devices around the home and as a central location for data backups from networked computers. That all sounds good in theory, but so far home servers have not turned into a big segment.

HP was one of the early computer makers to introduced computers running WindowsHome Server and already offers the HP MediaSmart Server EX485 and the MediaSmart Server EX487 selling for about $550 and $700 respectively.

HP is set to round out its MediaSmart Server line with the coming introduction of a new, lower cost MediaSmart server called the LX195. Engadget reports some specifics on the LX195 to go along with some images leaked earlier this month. The LX195 uses a single 640GB internal SATA drive, which is a bit small if you have lots of HD content to store. You can connect external storage though via the quartet of USB ports on the rear of the machine.

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From CNET News.com: When Google Labs released its experimental browser toolbar with their My Location finder for Internet Explorer last week, we wondered (read: heckled) why it wasn't available for Firefox. Now we know. Instead of being added on through a toolbar or extension, it was intended to be built in. So, on Thursday, Mozilla announced a new feature for Firefox 3.5 beta 4, and for Fennec, the code name for the mobile version of Firefox: Google's geolocation service. Like the toolbar with My Location, Mozilla's opt-in engine will use your position to return more focused search results across the Web.

Here's how it works. When you browse to a page that requests to know your location, you accept or decline. Declining does nothing, but accepting delivers your Wi-Fi access point or IP address details to Google Location Services, using an encrypted SSL connection (https). Google can then return search results for your area. Using the classic example, a search for "movie theaters" or the weather will bring up local listings without you having to type in your city or ZIP code.

Privacy is a key concern here. With many computer users going out of their way to erase their Internet tracks, handing them over for the sake of saving a few keystrokes may seem foolhardy. To that end, Mozilla has posted in an FAQ section that "Firefox does not track or remember your location between sessions, never sends your location to any third party, and never sends it to any of Mozilla's servers."

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From CNET News.com: Facebook stopped a phishing attack on Thursday, its second day in a row of dealing with a worm on the site that lures people to a fake Facebook page and prompts them to log in.

Unsuspecting Facebook users get a message from a friend urging them to "check this out" and including a link to a Web page that appears to be a Facebook log-in page, but it is a fake site that steals their information when they type in their username and password. The worm also sends a copy of the message to the infected Facebook member's contacts.

In the latest attack, the Web address was "FBStarter.com." In Wednesday's attack, the address was "BAction.net."

The attacks were stopped within a few hours in each case, said Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt. He said it was too early to say whether the two phishing attacks are related. "We are investigating," Schnitt said.

Once Facebook learns of a phishing attack, either by members notifying the company or employees noticing that a URL is being distributed to a lot of people, the company deletes the URL from members' pages, blocks fresh postings, and removes the redirect to the URL that appears in e-mail messages, Schnitt said.

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From CNET News.com: Microsoft isn't confirming just when Windows 7 will launch, but it is hoping that the fact that not too much has changed between the release candidate and beta versions will convince people that the product is nearly ready.

Subscribers to Microsoft's MSDN and TechNet developer programs will have access to the release candidate version starting Thursday, while the general public will have to wait until May 5. That said, users may not notice a huge difference between the two versions at first glance.

"We're not adding a ton of things," said Corporate Vice President Mike Nash in an interview. "Most of the changes are fit-and-finish things."
The company didn't say how many people it hopes will try out the version, which is expected to be the last public test version before Microsoft declares Windows 7 soup. Nash did say he is hoping plenty of IT professionals use the product at work and home and also that any lingering partners make sure they have tested their products.

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From Tom's Hardware: We learned last week that Windows 7 will include a special XP Mode that will run the older operating system in a virtual environment inside the upcoming OS to ensure maximum compatibility.

In fact, Microsoft is claiming that XPM provides near perfect Windows XP compatibility within Windows 7 – so that takes care of one of the raison d'etre for the old OS.

The speed and light(er) weight factor of Windows XP, however, won’t be maintained as you’ll need a fairly decent machine to run XP Mode. The system requirements to run XP Mode are beefier than those to run Windows 7 (which should run on any recent netbook).

According to a report from Cnet, a minimum of 2 GB RAM is needed for XP Mode. And as we detailed last week, XP Mode will utilize and require virtualization technologies in recent processors from both AMD and Intel, such as Intel's VT.

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From X-bit Labs: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is rumoured to demonstrate a new version of its PlayStation Portable handheld video game at E3 video games trade-show in early June. The new device will reportedly not feature universal media disc (UMD) support, but will offer some new features.

The revamped Sony PSP will ditch UMD media, but will feature a built-in 8GB or 16GB flash drive for storing games on board of the console, reports 1UP web-site. The design of the new PlayStation Portable will also be considerably dissimilar from the available system: game controls will be located on a special sliding keypad beneath the screen. Since the new PSP will be dramatically different, albeit it is not projected to be Sony’s second-generation portable console, it is also expected to get a new name: PlayStation Portable Go!

The lack of UMD in the new PlayStation Portable will mark a milestone for Sony and will force the company to transit to digital distribution of video games, movies, music, etc. for the PSP. It is rumoured that Sony will have 100 games available for download for the new PSP Go! at the launch. Nevertheless, iit remains to be seen how Sony plans to substitute the lack of UMD support (each UMD can carry 900MB - 1800MB of data) with 8GB or 16GB internal flash drive.

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