Mozilla Corp. has accepted Microsoft’s recent offer for help in getting the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client to run properly under Windows Vista.

According to a reply posted this week to the Mozilla developers forum by Mozilla spokesman Chris Beltzner, “for the record, yes, we’d definitely be interested in some 1:1 support. The facility and program that you describe should really help to ensure that we get the proper integration issues looked at for Firefox 2 and Thunderbird 2.”

Source: InformationWeek

Google has added to its service for finding books the ability to search local libraries.

Queries in Google Book Search, which is in beta, automatically include results from the new Library Catalog Search feature, and a “find libraries” link. Clicking on the link sends the user to another page where local libraries carrying the book will be listed, based on the user’s zip code.

Source: InformationWeek

The last leg of Intel’s comeback special will arrive on Monday in the form of Merom, or the notebook version of the Core 2 Duo, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans.

Notebook makers are expected to tout new systems based on the chip on Monday, the sources said.

Source: News.com

An open-source competitor is zeroing in on Oracle’s customer base–and it’s not the popular and well-known MySQL open-source database. It’s a relative newcomer called EnterpriseDB Advanced Server.

Unlike other open-source offerings, EnterpriseDB Advanced Server is designed to be Oracle-compatible and run Oracle database applications unchanged, says EnterpriseDB CEO Andy Astor. At LinuxWorld recently, the company introduced a migration tool called EnterpriseDB Replication Server to move data out of Oracle and into EnterpriseDB Advanced Server.

Source: InformationWeek

German coders have developed a free encryption plug-in for webmail accounts. Freenigma comes as a browser plug-in for Firefox which works with Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail and other webmail accounts. The eponymous firm behind the technology wants to extend this service to other webmail and social network sites.

The software offers an implementation of GNU Privacy Guard and support of the OpenPGP standard to scramble and unscramble the content (though not the From and To) headers of webmail messages. Within the webmail client, a JavaScript-based “user script” handles the integration of the freenigma functionality in the webmail client as well as the encryption and decryption of mails. Freenigma’s server copes with key management.

Source: TheRegister

Microsoft’s latest Windows Live offering is for the most part not a new service at all, but rather a one-time download that includes a subset of the available Live applications, much like the Google Pack.

Called Windows Live Essentials, the program also features a new application called Windows Live Dashboard. The Dashboard would show the user what Live programs are installed and what is available for download, rather than requiring the user to visit the Windows Live Ideas Web site.

Although it was not detailed, the new application seems to be optimized at this time for Windows XP SP2 using Internet Explorer 6.x. At least two programs are slated to come with the download, Windows Live Messenger and Live Mail Desktop beta, although it is likely that other applications would be included as well.

Source: BetaNews

BellSouth Corp., the No. 3 U.S. local telephone company, on Friday said it will immediately drop a $2.97 monthly fee for high-speed Internet service after U.S. communications regulators threatened to investigate the charge.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission had been poised to send a letter of inquiry to BellSouth asking the carrier to explain the new fee, which replaces a surcharge for a government subsidy program, FCC officials said.

Source: Reuters

A man was sentenced to three years in prison Friday for launching a computer attack that hit tens of thousands of computers, including some belonging to the Department of Defense, a Seattle hospital and a California school district.

Christopher Maxwell, 21, of Vacaville, Calif., was also sentenced to three years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty in May to federal charges of conspiracy to intentionally cause damage to a protected computer and conspiracy to commit computer fraud.

Source: AP

A Florida man who made millions of dollars selling illegal copies of computer programs was sentenced Friday to six years in prison in one of the nation’s largest software piracy cases.

Danny Ferrer, of Lakeland, Fla., pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy and copyright infringement charges after an FBI investigation of his Web site, BuysUSA.com. Ferrer also was ordered to pay more than $4.1 million in restitution to software makers Adobe Systems Inc., Autodesk, and Macromedia Inc.

Source: AP

Sophos PLC has released a free tool to help PC users root out rootkits.

Called Sophos Anti-Rootkit, the software will detect and remove both known and unknown rootkits, and it will warn systems administrators if removing the software might harm operating system integrity.

Source: computerworld