XP Updates

This week has seen the end of support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (XP SP2), meaning that Microsoft will no longer be providing updates and bug fixes to what is now a 6 year old operating system, although of course your PC will still continue to work. This means that if glitches do occur, Microsoft will not repair them. This is quite a milestone, since XP SP2 was a very important operating system for Microsoft. It was released to plug many of the gaping security holes in the original version of XP, and introduced so many new features it was practically a different operating system when compared with XP SP1. The need to release SP2 to fix these security bugs also led to the release of Windows Vista being pushed back – one of the contributing factors to Vista's lack of success.

While support for XP SP2 may be ending, Microsoft have made another interesting announcement this week, saying that some Windows 7 users will be allowed to downgrade their operating system to XP SP3 until 2020 (by which time XP will be almost 20 years old itself!). While most home users probably won't want to do this, many businesses like to use the same operating system across their PCs in order to keep other software costs down, and it is business users who this announcement has been aimed at.

If you are still stuck on XP Service Pack 2, you should upgrade to Service Pack 3 as soon as possible, to ensure that you continue to get patches and security updates, which Microsoft have pledged to provide until 2014. If you haven't yet upgraded your XP system to Service Pack 3, see Windows Advisor article X 59 – ‘XP: First Look at Service Pack 3’ – for details how to.

All the best,

Stefan Johnson, Editor-in-Chief

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With the release of Internet Explorer 8, plus the availability of the Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera web browsers on Windows, the trusty Firefox browser is starting to look a bit long in the tooth. However, it was only a few years ago, when Internet Explorer was suffering from persistent security flaws, Firefox was the browser of choice for Windows users who wanted to avoid nasty adware and spyware infections. Now the developer, Mozilla, have a new version of Firefox in the pipeline, Firefox 4.

The update promises to add many new features, and give the interface a major face lift. The browser tabs are now on top of the window, and on Windows 7 and Vista systems the menu bar has been replaced by the Firefox button (similar to the Office button in Office 2007). The stop and reload buttons have also been merged into a single button, and the bookmarks menu has been replaced by a bookmarks button. As well as the Interface changes, Firefox 4 also features support for HTML 5, the new version of the programming language used to create web pages which is designed to allow for much more dynamic web content. It is also designed to protect against crashes, so when a browser plug-in fails it doesn't cause the whole browser to crash.

You can get a Beta version of Firefox 4 to test out these new features here:

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The latest generation of mobile phones, such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Google Android handsets, have introduced the idea of an 'app'; a small application that can be downloaded and run on a mobile phone, usually relying on Internet servers to do most of the heavy data processing. Now 'table PC' devices such as the Apple iPad and forthcoming releases from Microsoft and Blackberry are starting to blur the distinction between phones and PCs, and between 'apps' and your normal Windows desktop applications.

Until now, apps have been developed using traditional programming languages such as C or Java, meaning the app development has been the preserve of professional software engineers or dedicated hobbyists. However, Google, who distribute apps for the Android mobile operating system, are planning on opening up app development to everyone. They have released a tool called Google App Inventor for Android which allows anyone to develop apps for Android phones by dragging and dropping blocks of code and connecting them together to build an application. The application has been tested on high school pupils rather than professional software engineers, in order to ensure that this doesn't require a computer science degree to use.

If you fancy trying to create your own Android application, you can find out more here: