After having its PlayStation Network breached and managing to lose the data of millions of customers, the network was shut down. Now, Sony promises that they are going to improve the security measures and they’re giving away some free subscriptions to PlayStation Plus and maybe some free software as well.

Apparently, services will resume soon and functionality should return by the end of the week. [Engadget]

EPUB is an ebook standard used by many online book sellers these days. It has a number of features, including vector images, word wrapping or css styling. Free ebooks are often coming in this format. Reading an epub file is usually done by downloading it to your computer and then opening it with an application that can read it. A Firefox addon now allows for EPUB files to be opened from the comfort of your browser, without all the other steps that are usually required.

Once installed, the EPUB reader addon will take over when it sees that the download of an EPUB file begins. Instead, it will display the content of the book inside the browser, in a new tab. On the left side you will see the book’s index and on the right side of that new tab you will be able to read the book.

The addon also allows you to search archive.org and feedbooks.com for titles to read. If you use Firefox, you can download the EPUBReader here.

The Microsoft MIX11 Web developer conference took place this week and on this occasion an Internet Explorer 10 pre-release version was made available, which is surprising since IE9 just came out about a month ago. One other surprise is that IE 10 will not be supported on any OS that was launched before Windows 7, and this includes Windows Vista.

IE 9 supports both Vista and Windows 7 but it doesn’t support Windows XP, something that they took a bit of heat about when they launched their latest browser. The installer will not allow IE 10 to be installed on a machine that runs on Vista, shutting down with an error message instead.

The reason is that Microsoft believes that IE should take full advantage of the hardware and the DirectX API which Windows 7 has.

If you want to bypass the 20 article limit, all you have to do right now is change the browser or clear the cookies on your current browser. Since the limit is based on the cookies set by the site, and not on the IP, clearing those cookies will reset the counter and allow you to read another 20 articles.

From the features point of view, Firefox 5 will come with the two addons as built-in features: F1 Simple Sharing and Account Manager. One other important feature of FF5 will be the support for the 64-bit version of Windows 7.

The focus of FF6 will be on optimization of JavaScript, Web applications framework and OS X 10.7 support.

As for FF7, the list of features isn’t final yet, but we do know that XBL support and electrolysis (separate processes) are mentioned.

All in all, they plan to work a lot on the user interface and on the responsiveness of the browser.

The reason for the “might” from the title is that the status of the document is still Draft, which means that it can change in one way or the other.

These days, finding the best mobile broadband provider is a must if you’re  a passionate user of Internet based services. Finding one that is professional and reliable isn’t always easy, when you have companies like Orange, O2, Three, Virgin or T-Mobile advertising their services on every TV station and site. When it comes to quality broadband plans, each provider has his own plans that you can pick from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Picking one that will fit all you needs requires for a bit of research to be done, and what better place to do it then on the Internet.

Thanks to the hot competition that exists between these giant providers, you will find many deals available online and all you have to do is check some specialized sites and see what they have to offer you. Most people have a set budget in mind, and they’re looking to maximize what they’re getting with that money. A bit of research online should give you all the answers you need, and you should be able to make an informed decision.

Mobile broadband becomes cheaper and faster all the time, as more users pay for it and technology advances, allowing providers to decrease the costs and pass the savings to the consumers.

You can switch this feature on either by accepting the prompt from Gmail or by going to the Settings area and pick the Desktop Notifications setting. Right now, you have the option to toggle new mail, chat and new mail that is important.

When you consider the huge number of ebooks available in the Amazon store (810,000 titles) and the hugely popular Kindle reader, these sales show that ebooks are a decent alternative to paper based titles.

I for one love paperback books and I doubt I will ever quit buying them, but I also plan to get a Kindle this year and read as many free books as possible, especially sci fi stories and history books. I’m sure many lovers of the written word will do the same, and paper and ebooks can live together for a very long time. There is no doubt though, that the evolution of the ebooks will continue to take away from the sales of paperbacks.

If you’re curious about the prices and the titles of Kindle ebooks, check out the Kindle Store for more details.

The nice thing is that the JavaScript runs in your browser and the password is not sent to anyone while you’re typing it.

The 7 April release they added another UI option: the possibility to move the tabs on top of the browser window with a single right-click.

That’s a great change especially if we consider that a complete browser won’t require too many add-ons.

The only downside surrounding this new release is that it forces you to reboot once the installation is finished.