Firefox 1.5 has officially been released. Latest improvements include:
Here’s what’s new in Firefox 1.5:

* Automated update to streamline product upgrades. Notification of an update is more prominent, and updates to Firefox may now be half a megabyte or smaller. Updating extensions has also improved.
* Faster browser navigation with improvements to back and forward button performance.
* Drag and drop reordering for browser tabs.
* Improvements to popup blocking.
* Clear Private Data feature provides an easy way to quickly remove personal data through a menu item or keyboard shortcut.
* Improvements to product usability including descriptive error pages, redesigned options menu, RSS discovery, and “Safe Mode” experience.
* Better accessibility including support for DHTML accessibility and assistive technologies such as the Window-Eyes 5.5 beta screen reader for Microsoft Windows. Screen readers read aloud all available information in applications and documents or show the information on a Braille display, enabling blind and visually impaired users to use equivalent software functionality as their sighted peers.
* Report a broken Web site wizard to report Web sites that are not working in Firefox.

Download here

For you Star Wars fans out there…. sithsense.com. How about a game of 20 questions with Darth Vader?

Chilling can cause colds
Did your mum ever tell you to “wrap up warm or you’ll catch a cold?” If so, scientists at Cardiff University’s Common Cold Centre have proved her right.

For the first time, new research, published in the medical journal Family Practice by Claire Johnson and Professor Ron Eccles at the University’s Common Cold Centre supports the folklore of chilling and colds. Previous scientific studies had dismissed any relationship between chilling and viral infection as having no scientific basis.

180 volunteers were recruited for the study during the common cold season in Cardiff (October to March). The volunteers took their shoes and socks off and half had their feet chilled in ice cold water for 20 minutes while the others sat with their feet in an empty bowl. 29% of the chilled volunteers developed cold symptoms over the next 4-5 days compared to only 9% in the control group.

Professor Ron Eccles said: “When colds are circulating in the community many people are mildly infected but show no symptoms. If they become chilled this causes a pronounced constriction of the blood vessels in the nose and shuts off the warm blood that supplies the white cells that fight infection. The reduced defences in the nose allow the virus to get stronger and common cold symptoms develop. Although the chilled subject believes they have “caught a cold” what has in fact happened is that the dormant infection has taken hold.”

Common colds are more prevalent in winter than summer and this may be related to an increased incidence of chilling causing more clinical colds, but another explanation put forward in a review article published by the Centre is that our noses are colder in winter.

“A cold nose may be one of the major factors that causes common colds to be seasonal. When the cold weather comes we wrap ourselves up in winter coats to keep warm but our nose is directly exposed to the cold air. Cooling of the nose slows down clearance of viruses from the nose and slows down the white cells that fight infection. Mothers can now be confident in their advice to children to wrap up well in winter.”

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/newsevents/17472.html

After being approached by a very angry looking, snarling Clare, I have put some of my older photos in the gallery. I never bothered to add them again after I put this new thing on as I didn’t think they were that popular, but there they are, just for you Clare (and anyone else that wants a look)!

The day has finally come! I’ve been waiting a good few months for the release of the latest installment of what is possibly my all time favourite game. I pre-ordered it about 2 months ago from Amazon, and it popped through my letterbox friday morning. So you can guess what I’ve been doing all weekend! If you’ve never seen Age of Empires before, go see it! I won’t bore you now with all the fun new features, but it is a vast improvement over the last version. It is (in my opinion) on of the most addictive games ever… it’s one of those that you can just keep playing.