Gmail to enable virus scanning.

Googling Google blog has this post about the virus scanning feature to be added soon to Gmail. Googl mail has already a built in capability of blocking attachments with some suspect extensions; I had to rename various attachments with .zip or .exe extension to bypass the filter.
The Gmail help center was updated yesterday with these information:

Each time you send and receive attachments, Gmail automatically scans them for viruses.

If a virus is found in an attachment you've received, our system will attempt to remove it, or clean the file, so you can still access the information it contains. If the virus can't be removed from the file, you won't be able to download it.

If a virus is found in an attachment you're trying to send, you won't be able to send the message until you remove the attachment.

The last sentence sounds interesting: in this way you'll be aware of attaching a virus before actually send the email.
I'll look for details in the next days.

Firefox 1.5 is out!!

The long awaited 1.5 release of Firefox is now ready for download. Many improvement were added:

• Automated update
• Faster browser navigation
• Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs
• and many others... (here the complete list)

As with the previous releases the upgrade installation is straightforward: I uninstalled the previuos release and installed Firefox 1.5. All my settings remained untouched.
More on this release in the next days.

Seven Thanks from the Gmail Team.

Today is the Thanksgiving Day in U.S.A. and the guys at the Gmail team published a list of seven things they are thankful for.
The 4th place is for a strange video celebrating the Gmail account: have a look at it! (The link to the list came from News about Google blog).

Google Analytics stops signups.

Google recently launched Google Analytics after the acquisition of Urchin in March 2005.
Due to the great success this new service, the signups were temporarily suspended few days after the official launch. This is the message shown if you try to log with your Google account:

Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience.

Zdnet blog Googling Google reported that 234,725 Analytics accounts were created so far, before stopping the signups.
If you wat to read more about this topic, it's also covered here .

Sun offering Java Studio Creator and Java Studio Enterprise for free

Afters Netbeans IDE, Sun Microsystems is offering to Sun Developer Network subscribers (the subscription is free of charge), full-license versions of it's Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). In particular you can download at no cost:

• Java Studio Creator
• Java Studio Enterprise

Although there are other free IDEs for java out there (Eclipse over all), I think it's worth a look.
For more informations about the products and the term of the offering see this link (registration required).

Getting Started!

This is the first post of my new blog. The URL isn't cool but with so many blogs hosted by blogger... you know... it's hard to find a meaningful name.
So: what is this blog about? I'l find:

• Custom software developement experiences (especially focused on Web applications);
• Software development process improvements;
• Reviews of books I read;
• News about the software development industry and trends;
  
• Personal thoughts

I would like to share the things I learn during the log way to mastering software develpment. I learnt so much from what many people shared online; sometimes solutions provided free by other people saved me many hours of hard work, so it's time to participate in sharing knowledge.
I hope you'll have a nice reading.
Let's begin!