When Steve Jobs convened the “Let’s Rock” event to unveil the new iPod Nano in September, he made a point of whetting our appetites for premium in-ear headphones with remote and mic that were said, at the time, to be shipping in October. It’s now December and the Apple website still says “Coming Soon.”

Apple engineers were ordered to revise the design, which required Apple’s overseas contractors to retool their manufacturing process, resulting in the extended delay, according to sources cited by MacBloz on Monday.

The premium headphones, slated to retail for $79, are intended to compete with high-end audiophile headsets costing two and three times that amount from the likes of Bose and Sony, and according to the MacBlogz sources, that standard has not yet been achieved. On the other hand, it should be premature to rule out a splashy marketing deployment of the eagerly anticipated headphones just in time for last minute holiday shopping.

Via MacBlogz.

What are the Adobe AIR apps that you couldn’t live without?  Tell us in the comments!

DeskTube - DeskTube lets you get complete control over YouTube on your desktop. Search, watch, comment, get embed codes, upload your own videos and even download the videos you are currently watching as MOV files.

Dorame - Dorame doesn’t add much to the Pandora listening experience, but it does give you the freedom of being outside of your browser and changing up the appearance of the service.

EarthBrowser - EarthBrowser gives you live updates of clouds, earthquakes, the weather, satellite overlays, volcanoes, fires and a whole lot more.

Feedalizr - Many people have downloaded service specific apps like TweetDeck, Twhirl and so on, but Feedalizr rolls several social tools into one app.  You can work with Facebook, Flickr, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Twitter and VideoVideo all from this one handy interface.

Google Analytics - While most people love looking at statistics about their websites, Google Analytics can be a bit slow at times for those webmasters that use their tools.  This Adobe AIR app gives you the ability to open reports in multiple tabs for easier switching and allows you to change date ranges faster.

MiniTask - A desktop tool for creating detailed to-do lists that you can separate out by categories, copy the items out to other programs, set reminders, print out task sheets and more.

Posty - Get all of your FriendFeed. Identi.ca, Jaiku, Pownce, Tumblr and Twitter updates in one handy application with built-in URL shortening, spell checking, message search and more.

TweetDeck - While it seems that apps only work with one social site are becoming passe, TweetDeck gives you so much control over how you see your Tweets, it is well worth it.  Your incoming messages are already split into columns for timeline, replies and direct messages, and then you can build custom columns for things such as work, friends and more.

Twhirl - The odds are fairly high that this is the application you installed Adobe Air for in the first place, but that doesn’t exclude it from the list in case it wasn’t.  Probably the most popular of the Twitter clients, Twhirl also supports interactions with multiple accounts for FriendFeed, laconi.ca, seesmic and Twitter.

Yammer - Yammer, the private corporate microblogging service, gets a desktop client that runs on the Adobe AIR platform, allowing you to use all the features of the service freed from your browser.

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Adobe Apollo Turns Into AIR and Gets New HTML Capabilities
Adobe Can’t Fix Security Flaw Until End of October
Adobe Illustrator Integrated with Del.icio.us
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Mr. Freiburghouse explains that a Yotify query is an alert with smarts. Yotify.com uses the word “scout”. Users provide information about their interests, and Yotify combines ads, collaboration, and search. To be fair, Mr. Freiburghouse notes that Yotify.com is skewed to shopping. And, towards the foot of the article, Mr. Freiburghouse quotes the Kelsey Group regarding Google’s market share. A consumer oriented search system, even with the lift of social search and software agent technology has its work cut out to gain market share.

I gave Yotify.com a quick look to refresh my memory.  I ran a query for “quad core processor” and the system at 8 10 pm Eastern displayed:

A user can share results, get alerts hourly or daily, and use the related searches feature to refine the query.

This type of system will appeal to an individual who wants to obtain shopping, travel, and articles listed in classified ad systems. I fiddled with the Web log function, but it was less useful than the shopping content. Over time, the Yotify.com index will add poundage.

Why did Technology Review rev its engine when it learned about Yotify.com? My speculation is that Yotify.com is different from Google. Yotify offers social and collaborative functions. Yotify has lots of buttons, controls, and options to make the user feel as if he or she has control over the results. I think an hourly update on a “quad core CPU” might be just what the doctor ordered for a Technology Review editor needing a break from the intellectual cage match at the publication.

I am waiting for Yotify.com to create an enterprise version. Granted the Craigslist.org content may have to be swapped out for something more substantive. Procurement teams and information technology professionals looking to deploy a search system that works may find the Yotify.com technology applied to a regulated industry like pharmaceuticals just the cure for ails information access. Until there is an enterprise version, I like Yotify.com as a system that offers some interesting features for consumers. If you are intrigued by consumer search systems, give Yotify.com some attention.

Stephen Arnold, in Beyond Search

And here’s their video!

Yotify Video Tour from Yotify Blog on Vimeo

Retailers reported Xbox 360 console sales over the Black Friday weekend were on pace to beat previous years, outselling the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one ratio and estimating a 25 percent increase from Xbox 360 Black Friday sales figures from 2007.

Not bad. But given Microsoft is making no mention of Nintendo's (NTDOY) Wii, we're guessing the Wii continued its dominance of the game console market.

In October, Nintendo sold more Wiis than sales of the Xbox 360 and PS3 combined, and eBay (EBAY) recently said the Wii was the site's most popular product on Black Friday.

See Also:
October Game Sales: Nintendo Wii Kicking PS3 Butt
Sony Cuts PS3 Prices By $150 -- If You Have Good Credit

It’s a long road to a victory in the browser wars. Just ask Firefox. The open source browser which launched in 2004 just cracked the 20 percent threshold of the market share for November, according to Net Applications, pushing it a step closer but still miles away from IE.

Recently a few new players have also thrown their hats in the ring, including Google with its much-hyped Chrome and the lesser known, Mozilla-based social web browser Flock, which released its 2.0 version this past October. But do these newcomers even stand a chance?

The Basics

Firefox is gaining ground for good reason: it’s simple, reliable and secure. Its tabbed browsing led to a similar remodel in IE and it has a slew of add-ons that give it a leg up over the competition. It’s slowly becoming the new standard with a steady audience, and that will be hard to beat anytime soon. And its open source platform leaves room for alternatives and experimental niche browsers like Flock.

Flock 2.0 is basically a Firefox with a lot of perks and pre-installed add-ons for those heavy into social networking.  Think of it as a FriendFeed of the browser world, which brings all of your friends from 23 various networks together in a sidebar. It is also one of the first browsers to incorporate media feeds for photos and videos.  Flock is all about sharing what you find on the web as you surf, and it allows you to accomplish this pretty easily by dragging and dropping them either into an email or onto a friend.

Chrome is the polar opposite of Flock, and its big advantage is that it’s even simpler than Firefox, or any other browser out there right now.  The search bar is also integrated into the address bar, which seems to be the wave of the future, at least for those who swear by Google search and don’t need any bells and whistles. Unfortunately, Chrome’s only available for PCs at the moment.

Usability

Chrome wins hands down on getting the job done.  It’s quick and painless with a clear focus of searching for information using Google’s engine.  Dynamic tabbed browsing is a staple now, and if anything crashes, only that tab will go down, not your entire session, which is nice. But if you want a richer web browsing experience stick with Firefox or Flock.  There’s also no easy way to subscribe to RSS feeds from the search bar as there is with Firefox.

Flock can feel a bit overwhelming at times with all of the sidebars of information, but once you get everything set up and get the hang of it, it’s pretty convenient and preferable to keeping a million tabs open for sites like Twitter and Facebook. The drag and drop interface is great.  When you just want to email a YouTube video or picture it’s much easier than copying any URLs, although it does also seem a bit too easy to share something that you might not want shared.

The only other problem with the social networks is that you can’t really fit all of that functionality into a sidebar.  It’s a good way of consolidating friends, but it’s more like a giant address book than anything else. Simple things like posting tweets are a bit confusing, with no clear box for entering in text. When a friend adds content, however, it will open up the profile in the main browser in full view, so you still need to go back to the source.

Speed

Despite the extra features, Flock is surprisingly just as fast as Chrome or Firefox, at least on a medium grade PC.  Looks like they’ve improved upon this concern in the latest release. And Chrome seems to have Firefox beat in this category but the difference isn’t anything drastic.

Privacy

Incognito — aka “porn mode” –  is the new way to surf, as every browser is picking up on this private surfing option that Safari first initiated.

Chrome has faced some privacy concerns at launch with its Omnibox monitoring and recording too much information, but this can all be prevented by changing the default settings and going Incognito.

Expandability

Chrome doesn’t support any extensions or add-ons yet, so Firefox still dominates in this area.  But if you are looking for simple, you probably don’t want much more than Chrome already offers.

Final Thoughts

Firefox is here to stay, but there will always be a long tail of niche alternatives like Chrome and Flock.  When Chrome moves into Mac realm it could pick up some market share from Safari.  Flock will be there for social network junkies who want to try something new, but the first step to making Flock mainstream will be for more of the social networks themselves to go mainstream. Twitter is on track, but still has a long way to go before it’s a household name. If you’re only on Facebook or MySpace, you probably don’t need to worry about the extra sidebars and features.

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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Flock Gets a New Boss, Flock 1.0 Coming
Flock Public Beta Now Live
How Can Flock’s Social Browser Play Into the “Open” Movement?
Flock’s Social Browser 1.0 Has Finally Arrived
More is More: Flock 2.0
Flock CEO Jumps Ship
Anxious About Private Browsing in Firefox? Try the Latest Build

Apple wrestled more computer users from the grasp of Microsoft, according to a November survey of Web users released Monday. Macs comprise nearly 9 percent of computers online, Net Applications announced.

The November marketshare of 8.82 percent is an increase over Cupertino’s 8.21 percent share NA reported in October.

Conversely, Microsoft’s share of Internet usage fell in November. Windows fell to 89.69 percent of online users, slipping below the nine-out-of-10 marketshare Redmond has enjoyed for years.

Along with the Mac, iPhone devices eroded the Windows lead. The iPhone jumped 12 percent in November to 0.37 percent of the 40,000 Websites monitored by Net Applications. In October, the iPhone comprised 0.33 percent of operating systems accessing the Internet.

Microsoft Internet Explorer fell below 70 percent of the market for Web browsers, IE dropping 2 percent to 69.77 percent in November. Safari hit 7 percent of the market in November, climbing 8 percent over October’s 6.57 percent rating.

In another milestone, Firefox topped 20 percent of browsers, rising four percent from 19.97 percent posted in October.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

I Want Sandy & Stikkit Close
Two popular online productivity applications, I Want Sandy and Stikkit, have announced that they will be shutting down soon. Both services are run by the same company and recently got acquired by Twitter. It was hinted that some of the technology would be integrated into Twitter later on.

Google Admits to Breaking App Store Terms
After a little searching around a group of individuals managed to find out that Google had used undocumented API’s in their iPhone application, which is against Apple’s SDK rules. There’s been no word from Apple yet regarding whether Google will have to change how their program works.

eBay’s Traffic Plummeting
According to some data eBay’s traffic in the U.S. has been sharply dropping. In October 2007 they were receiving 13.5 million unique visitors, but in October 2008 they received just 9.1 million unique visitors. And it continues to drop from one month to another. Will eBay be able to come back?

Apple Finally Got Safari Right on the iPhone
Looks like I’m not the only one noticing a dramatically improved Safari browser on the iPhone 2.2 firmware. I used to see Safari crashes several times each day, but haven’t had a single hiccup since the iPhone 2.2 firmware update. Yay!

Google Maps Updated
Google has updated their maps service with a refreshed interface, and spruced up the Street View a bit. Now when using Street View the imagery will take up the entire map area on the screen instead of being contained in a bubble. This is a dramatic improvement for anyone that uses the Street View regularly.

G1 Gets Visual Voicemail and Opera Mini
The T-Mobile G1 powered by Google’s Android operating system now has two long awaited apps: visual voicemail and Opera Mini. The only downside is that the visual voicemail service is run by a third-party, but it is still free.

Watch Out for the New Digsby Installer
I’ve been a huge fan of the Digsby instant messenger client ever since it became available, and have managed to get dozens of friends, family, and co-workers using their software. Now, however, they are doing something I’m not all that fond of… asking users to install toolbars and other things during installation. I’ll continue to recommend their software, but I’ll be sure to warn people about the things it will try to install.

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Lunascape Browser Uses 3 Rendering Engines
Lunascape is a new browser available for Windows that lets you view websites using the Trident (Internet Explorer), Gecko (Firefox), or WebKit (Safari/Google Chrome) rendering engines. You get to pick and choose which rendering engine you want to use!

Zenbe Brings All Communication Into One Place
Zenbe is truly on the bleeding edge of email and communication innovation. Their email client will let you do things like manage tasks, sort through your calendar, post to Twitter, view Facebook updates, and much more from one central interface.

Share a Printer over the Internet
There have been times where I’ve wanted to print something when I’ve been away from my home. This freeware app will let you do just that by using your Internet connection to share your printer.

–Downloads–

• 7-Zip 4.61 ^Beta [Mirror]
• BurnAware Free 2.1.7 [Mirror]
• CCleaner 2.14.750 [Mirror]
• Deluge 1.0.5 [Mirror]
• Digsby Build 38 ^Beta [Mirror]
• FeedDemon 2.8.0.7 ^Beta [Mirror]
• FileZilla 3.1.6 [Mirror]
• Flock 2.0.2 [Mirror]
• Google Chrome 0.4.154.25 ^Beta [Mirror]
• HandBrake 0.9.3 [Mirror]
• ICQ 6.5.102 [Mirror]
• MediaCoder 0.6.2.4215 [Mirror]
• PeaZip 2.4.1 [Mirror]
• Recuva 1.21.373 [Mirror]
• Trillian 3.1.12 [Mirror]
• uTorrent 0.9 ^Beta
• uTorrent 1.9.13485 ^Alpha

Copyright © 2008 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox
WrapUp: I Want Sandy Closes, Share a Printer Over the Internet, and More

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