Safari 4 gets final

Maybe you just downloaded the Safari 4 Beta and liked it. If you did, then you'll probably like downloading the final version of the standards-compliant browsers.

It's medium-scale size-wise at 45MB, but there is actually a huge new addition to the browser. Not only does it feature a more stable overall feel, it also features the much awaited "sandboxing".

First introduced in Google Chrome, tab sandboxing basically involves different tabs acting like different entities. If one tab fails, the others don't. Plug-ins also have the same feature: if the plug-in crashes, the other windows aren't affected, and you can just restore it, seemingly by clicking on it. At least, that's how I understood the keynote.

Additionally, the final version doesn't have the Chrome-style "tabs on top" layout anymore, and it seems to be returning to the old style ala Safari 3 or Internet Explorer 7.

People have complained about Safari being a resource hog, however, so if you have an old computer, you may have to turn off Cover Flow or just boycott it altogether.

Internet Explorer 8 is final

The new version of Internet Explorer has just come out of beta and is a seriously huge step for a company like Microsoft. While it still has problems handling JavaScript (and thus, it doesn't pass the Acid3 web standards test), it has several end-user features that people will definitely like.

OK, maybe most of these features have already existed in the form of a Firefox extension (but some IE8 features were inspiration for some extensions as well) or just derived from several browsers outright (but then again, I'm not complaining about that), but it definitely lays some innovations in the table. And yes, those features just might be worth the traditional reboot after installation.

Web Slices

Just as Safari lets you select a part of a webpage to post into Mac OS X's widget environment, Internet Explorer 8 lets you get up to date on the several parts of a specific website. A fine example of what you can do with Web Slices is shown above.

Unfortunately, you'll have to install this add-on as it isn't built-in with the browser.

Accelerators

Although it's present in specialty browsers like Flock, Internet Explorer 8 gives the masses a more comprehensive list of shortcuts or "accelerators" to choose from. Let's say you don't know the meaning of the word "schadenfreude" and you see the word on a webpage. Double-click that word and several options will appear. It's either you blog it, find it on Wikipedia, etc. etc. etc..

Domain Highlighting

It sounds like a subtle cosmetic change, but it's a rather important security feature. Why? Because usually people don't get conscious of the URL when they could be accessing a fake site, I mean, you can know if a website is phishing you and stealing your information by just looking at the URL, but one will not do this always especially when the domain name isn't even noticeable. OK, Chrome users already know this, but since IE8 is a mainstream browser, it's all for the good.

Color-coded tabs

Complementing the domain highlights are the color-coded tabs. Basically, IE8 gives websites of the same domain the same color of tabs, so you can know whether that website you just accessed suddenly brought you to a fake version of it. In theory, that is.

Compatibility mode

Since Microsoft made Internet Explorer 8 a little more standards-compliant, there is bound to be a few issues involving old websites designed for older Internet Explorer versions. You can access this via a button beside the Refresh button. Just hope that you won't mistaken the two of them.

Individual tab management

While IE8 won't be able to let you rip tabs to form another window, you'll be able to have the benefit of a feature similar to Chrome. Let's say a tab froze up because of a plug-in like Adobe Reader or Flash. Usually, you'll have to press Ctrl+Alt+Del and terminate all important data in all the other tabs, well not anymore. You can just exit that tab and continue the work you've been doing in the other tabs.

InPrivate Browsing

Just like Safari's Private Browsing and Chrome's Incognito mode before it, Internet Explorer lets you surf like a rockstar without leaving evidence. Still, the parents have the upper hand if they are tech-savvy, because they can enable Parental Controls and simply disable this feature.

Cross-site scripting filters

Internet Explorer 8 promises to be the most secure browser in the planet, and the efforts show. With cross-site scripting filters ("cross-site scripting" involves one site sending err, messages to another one, hackers may use this system to put malicious code into genuine websites), Internet Explorer 8 finds out whether this is occurring and stops you from going inside the site.

Smart Search

Now when you type a search term, Internet Explorer gives you results as you type- and they're illustrated too!

Admittedly, I won't go back to Internet Explorer unless I'm desperate, but version 8 is very compelling nonetheless. Download it now.

REVIEW: Safari 4 Beta

Safari 4 Beta

Developed and Released by Apple

For Windows XP, Vista, 7 Beta (unofficially) and Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard

Oh yes, I remember Apple releasing version 3 of this same browser a few years ago.

It sucked.

So this pretty much meant that I had low expectations performance-wise while downloading this new beta, but I was in for a shocker when I completed installation and restarted the system. It just works wonderfully.

Not only is the file size significantly smaller, the performance is snappier, features do as advertised, and Windows users may just have a new viable option for an alternate browser.

While the stable release- Safari 3.1.2- is pretty decent in its own right, this one adapts some killer features, even if they're not as "killer" in comparison to tabs or the awesome bar in Mozilla Firefox, or individual tab management (when one tab hangs, the others don't get affected even if they're in the same window) in Google Chrome.

Let's get to the part that matters first: speed and stability.

While I have yet to try Safari for Windows, Safari pretty much opens slightly faster than the old version. Of course, first open is gonna be slower than usual, but later opens will be purportedly as fast as Chrome.

Then there's the website rendering. At first, my experience was rather slow, but later it somehow accelerated. I'm not sure if I was downloading some torrents at the time, but when I randomly opened my computer and opened the browser one time, sites were loading like fire- as fast as Chrome, or maybe marginally faster- and it has been that way ever since.

Web site render speeds can be attributed to the new Nitro engine built for Apple's WebKit (WebKit is also the same engine running Chrome, since it is open source and standards-compliant), and not only does it pass the new Acid3 test without errors, it also introduces compliance with a new proposed standard called CSS Animation- a Flash substitute that requires no new plug-ins.

And for a beta, it's actually very stable. I have yet to encounter a crash, and it cruises on smoothly.

Now we're getting too technical, but does Safari go too technical on your ass? Let's see how user-friendly it is.

If you've been using Safari for a while, you'll notice quite a change in this beta. While the interface is deemed tentative, it's rather impressive.

So what's the most noticeable change? The "Top Sites" page, that's what. Yes, you can set Top Sites to be your home page, and while it is just a prettier version of the Speed Dial feature in Opera or the home page of Chrome, it has a twist.

For example, you press the thumbnail of a site you usually visit in Opera or Chrome, but then you find out that there's not even an update available. Whoops! Time wasted. Well, in Top Sites, you can find out whether a site has new content or new feeds. This is marked by a Blue star on the upper right of the website's thumbnail.

Additionally, you can press the small Edit button on the lower-left to adjust the positions of the each site, or pin a site permanently in its place so it won't get replaced, or add and reduce the number of displayed sites.

But there's a catch: Top Sites won't accept specific input from the user- meaning that you can't put your own website for display in the page. It only displays the pages you visit most- which is pretty much the purpose of this new feature. While I love using this feature because it's both beautiful and practical, I'd still like to be able to input my own sites.

But what's the Search bar in the lower-right portion of the Top Sites page? Well, when you click it, the last page you've visited is displayed in Cover Flow mode, and when you type, the search narrows down by letter.

The thumbnails in Cover Flow are thumbnails of the sites as you visited them, and you can also search a portion of a web site. For example, you only remember a shred of text from a website, or maybe I just want to look for pages that have the words 'touch screen phones' in them because I want to look at some phones (pictured above). Well, this comprehensive search can do that.

The search is not only limited to History, Bookmarks can be searched as well when you click the Bookmarks icon on the toolbar.

I think Cover Flow is most practically applied in Safari, because you get a huge thumbnail of a website you visited. It's so big that you don't even have to open it again just to check if it is indeed the correct page you were looking for. Of course, that is if you're not gonna read the whole article located inside the page.

Speaking of Search, it also finally supports search suggestions (that is, if you choose Google to be your search provider) thus making the need for the Inquisitor plug-in unnecessary.

A new feature taken for granted is the improved zoom feature. Typically, when you zoom in on a website, the pictures don't really get zoomed in together with the text. But like the iPhone, Safari can now magnify web pages as well as their pictures. Small screens will benefit from this greatly, you know like a netbook? (Pictured below is the magnified Apple Online Store.)

Overall, Safari 4's Beta version is very stable, solid, and most importantly fast. It also features some great features, but some of the interface changes, like the tabs placed on top, the lack of a Chrome-like system for managing tabs and the Refresh and Stop button placed on the address bar, may piss some people off.

Comprehensive Ratings:

Safari opens 4 beta

It's the proud granddaddy of the Private Browsing mode... it's Safari!

The public beta for the newest version of Apple's browser Safari is available for download for both Mac and Windows. There are some interesting new features that may somehow resemble other browsers such as:

Top Sites

Taking a cue from Chrome's home page and Opera's Speed Dial, Top Sites gives you an elegant view of the sites you visit the most.

This twist here, however is the fact that you can display up to 24 thumbnails, you can pin a site you like into a position so it will stay and place and you can see whether a site has new content when a star is clipped on the top-right of the website's thumbnail! That sounds really cool for people who usually go to sites like Twitter, Blogger, or any news site.

Cover Flow

While highly unnecessary, it's still pretty nice to be able to browse your history, bookmarks, etc. on this view. This way you are able to actually get a huge thumbnail of the website in question.

Full History Search

This feature lets you search your history as you saw it. If you remember a caption from a photo you viewed, or a shred of text in that site, you can type it and Safari finds it for you. Does it work well? Who knows, especially for Flash sites?

Tabs on top

Safari takes another page from Google Chrome- it puts its tabs on top to save precious screen real estate. Hell, it even adds the effing Plus button!

Spanking New Engine

Safari already renders sites pretty fast but the new Nitro Engine renders sites faster (theoretically, at least). Apple has some benchmarks, but why trust the benchmarks released by Apple itself? Let's wait for some third-party to do so.

Still, if you're interested in how much faster Safari is from the competition, it claims to be 30 times faster than Internet Explorer 7, 3 times faster than Firefox, and slightly, very slightly by just the thousandths digit, faster than Chrome. Don't know if this is true for real world conditions, but we'll see.

Native Windows Look and Feel

This is a big, big, big plus for Windows Safari users. Now Safari will adapt to Windows Aero or Windows XP's themes,a s well as their native fonts. Still, if you like the grey anti-aliased look of past Safari versions, you can choose that.

ABOVE: Windows Vista. BELOW: Windows XP.

Developer Tools

HTML coders can test web code on the spot with Safari's developer mode.

The Quintessential Awesome Bar

Firefox first offered the option for people to use the address bar to do almost anything. It can get you sites by name, by address, or by a snippet of the address.

Search Suggestions

Mac Safari offers the Inquisitor plug-in for this feature. Now, you probably wouldn't need it. Powered by Google, Safari automatically suggests search terms and search addresses.

Zoom ala iPhone

Multi-touch gestures on the new MacBooks are able to zoom text like the iPhone's version of Safari. You can also use this feature by clicking the Font increase button.

Better Standards Compliance- made even better

It passes the famous ACID test. A perfect 100.

Seriously Stop Using Internet Explorer

If you haven't seen it on Yahoo!, then I'll tell you: STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER.

A new security vulnerability has been found, and it's effing serious. Tens of thousands of sites are littered with malicious code (and hackers can reproduce this code on other sites as well) and it seems to only affect Internet Explorer, regardless of version. Yes, even beta 8.

Still, malicious code isn't anything new to Internet Explorer users, and Microsoft will come out with a patch, right? Well, it's better to be secure than screwed by the time Microsoft releases a patch, because it seems that the malicious code that exploits Internet Explorer's vulnerability can be used to get your passwords.

I advise you to switch now. For speed, there's Chrome. For standards compliance, there's Safari. For customization, there's Firefox. And for nifty extra features, there's Opera.

How to browse without hassle

There are simply some browsing habits some people can't seem to break, and after they get their share of "browsing", they usually have to click several menus, maybe even access the Control Panel to remove all traces of his/her browsing history and whatnot- which is more or less a hassle that most have become accustomed to.

This usually assures your parents (if ever they actually inspect your browsing habits) won't know jacksh*t, or make sure that your younger siblings stay wholesome or something, but haven't you ever wondered why no browser has ever, ever put an option that allows you to browse in confidence, and not record everything you do?

Well, there's actually a one-click solution, you just haven't looked close enough.

Let's look at Safari. What is it? Well, it's the preferred browser of Mac users basically since it's made by Apple, but it also has a Windows version. Both versions are almost identical, with Windows having the bonus feature of modifiable search providers and at times, in my experience, even faster speeds than the one on Mac at times. So yeah, it loads pages faster than any browser I've used to date, and it opens faster than any browser I've used to date. But no, I've covered all that in the past, and no one probably gives a damn about SnapBack, but oh, here's a feature that'll have you shouting, "Why haven't they thought of this before?!". What is it? Well, it's Private Browsing- and it does as advertised.

It's simple: open your browser, select Edit in the menu bar, click Private Browsing, click OK, have fun.

You won't be leaving any tracks, your history will not be updated, the cache will not be used, and exiting the window means a permanent goodbye to visits to the menu bar and the Control Panel. You'll ne'er be caught in your tracks, that is unless the browser hangs*.

*Percentage of chance of hang is high when using Windows Vista, although the blue screen will replace the whole screen anyway.

Stuff to Download: Windows Edition Part 1?

Here are some great applications that'll guarantee your piece of mind and convenience- and they're free! (Download links are obviously on the program names.)

Security
Avast! Antivirus (TOP PICK)
Avast! Antivirus has the power of the other anti-virus applications you'll commonly pay for. When I reformatted just recently, this one was the first program I downloaded even before Mozilla Firefox or whatever.

Plus, you can personalize this thing with "skins" that are downloadable from the site- and it won't even slow your computer down.

ZoneAlarm Firewall
OK, I know firewalls are very much annoying all the time, but it's better to be safe than sorry, and ZoneAlarm's Firewall provides what you pay normally for free.

Have you a program that you didn't install but magically appeared? Well that's what a firewall is for.

AVG Anti-Virus
Although in my opinion, AVG Anti-Virus is very slow especially during updates (which are daily), it's the thing that everyone downloads- at least, that's according to Download.com.

Besides, two heads are better than one, so you can download both Avast! and AVG for better protection- and a second opinion.

Hijack This!
Not advised for uber-n00bs, Hijack This! is Trend Micro's answer to anti-spyware problems, and it has proven effective for several people. Plus, it's only a quick 800KB download, and it installs without a hitch.

The problem with this, however, is that Hijack This! also lists some safe applications so it'll be very confusing to pick which is dangerous and which is not.

People say it's effective, lightweight and zippy! So if you've got a real pro in the house, Hijack This! will be the answer to your spyware problems.CAPTION: n00bs beware.

But maybe in another edition, I will list a better suited anti-spyware app.

Entertainment and Media
VLC Media Player (TOP PICK)
It can play any video format from A-Z, from the 90's to 2008, licensed or independent, the works: in short, it's the only player you'll ever need. You can even stream stuff from here, and convert one video to another. Plus, its code is open to anyone to modify so there'll be a lot of updates.

Awkward (multiple) Open commands will confuse however, but if you learn about it, you're home free.
Windows Media Player 11
Forget 10, go 11. It's probably the best Windows Media Player version made in years, but you have to have a genuine check before download, and that's the thing that sucks about it.

QuickTime
QuickTime is a good media player that can play almost anything except Windows media files and MPEG2. You can stream some great quality trailers from Apple trailers, or get some crystal quality HD from that website. It slowly opens though, and some features like Full Screen are premium features- which means you have to pay just for that, and other semi-useful tools you can normally find for free in VLC.

QuickTime 7.1 makes streaming media a significantly better experience however, because it has less stuttering and smoother playback all the way for those watching Steve Jobs' keynotes on-demand.

iTunes
It's bloated, really bloated, so it is a pain to download. Plus, it loads slow as a slug. At least in Windows anyway.

Those things do not stop it, however, from being the number 1 jukebox for both Windows and Mac, and that's because it's the only program officially able to connect and synchronize with iPod/s and iPhone/s. Other than that, it has a decently fast audio ripper and converter, and you can view your music in its graphically stunning Cover Flow mode.

SUPER
Although it is disputed to have viruses because of its auto-update feature, SUPER Video Converter is a free program that's really good when it works. Yeah, its website looks very suspicious, and downloading it is hell, but when you get it, it really works.

Only thing is that your computer has to do absolutely NOTHING ELSE if you want it to work 100% guaranteed, and chances are you won't want that.

Handbrake
When you say "DVD to iPod, PSP, iPhone, etc. etc. etc.", I say "Handbrake". It does what you want: rip DVDs into PSP, iPod, iPhone-compatible movies. You only have to see the length of the "titles" to get it right. Other than that, you can queue several videos for conversion if the DVD contains episodes of your favorite series, and more.

Miro
Miro is a video organization program that can search, download and convert files from YouTube, Metacafe, Google Video, and lots more. Plus, you can watch and subscribe channels, probably through Media RSS, as well as download movie torrents.

PicLens for Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox (TOP PICK)
PicLens is simply the best, most immersive media exploring experience in the net. Simply click the table columns icon on the top-right side of your browser (Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox) or the Play button when you search Google Images or something like that.

CAPTION: Surf through its beautiful 3D walls while searching for that YouTube video, all in this small sized plug-in.

What it presents is a beatiful 3D wall that will have you screaming: "THIS IS FREE?!". Yes, it's that good.

Downloads
LimeWire
LimeWire is still the most popular P2P downloading application in the universe as it delivers almost anything you search. Yes, there are a lot of viruses and fake adware, but if you've got a great sense of intuition, you'll probably find more or less what you're looking for be it music, movies, applications, documents or pictures.

uTorrent (TOP PICK)
Actually, "micro-Torrent" is probably the right way of pronouncing it, and it's probably because the download size of the app is actually really small, and it definitely loads without a hitch.
If you want to download torrents, uTorrent is the best, most user-friendly way to do it.

GetRight (TOP PICK)
GetRight is great shareware that's not as irritating as, say, iGetter. You can go on downloading whatever you want forever without having to pay for the price of nag screens basically. I don't need acceleration, I couldn't care less, and that's because I can just pause, play and state the time of shutdown whenever my download finishes.

Computer Management
CoreTemp
CoreTemp is very much a lightweight program that enables you to see whether your processors are overheating. It only works with dual-core Intel processors however, and that sucks for the rest of us.

Browsers
Mozilla Firefox 3
It's faster, better, and ACID2 compliant. It's the new Firefox 3!

But OK, there are no "killer features" included in this point zero release, but the awesome bar is very much a welcome addition to its great features. Include that with extensive customizability, and you can have all that you need in one browser... although when I say faster, it means faster than Internet Explorer 7. IE 8 does not work at all.

Flock (TOP PICK)
Flock is a rising star in the browser race, and it's a social junkie's dream come true. Got a FaceBook account? Then log in and check on your friends from the browser. Got a YouTube account? Then see what your friends recently uploaded, and favorited in its cool Media Stream toolbar.

How about photos? Well, your photos can be uploaded to your Flickr or Photobucket account using the built-in multi-photo uploader. Offline blog editing and easier photo management? Of course. And you can publish them to your Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, or practically any blog.

Oh, and did I mention it's also based from Firefox? That means it's safe, powerful, and speedy all at the same time.

Safari 3.1
When it comes to speed, Safari can't be beat. When Firefox crawls, Safari is the browser I turn to, and it helps me get work done in a short time.

Oh, and it's probably the browser that opens fastest, at least for me.

Also, it's standards-compliant, so there will be no broken parts of pages here and there, and you can even resize text fields!

SnapBack is also an underused feature meant for jumping back to that search results page whenever you wander to far from it, and you don't want to have to click Back millions of times.

Compatibility issues stem from various websites like Yahoo! Mail though. But the Mac version is ironically supported.

In addition, its look may get boring after some time, and no, Safari doesn't offer official ways on how to change your browser's look.

If you're downloading Safari, download Inquisitor for Safari
Like Flock, Inquisitor's search add-on for Safari gives you instant results and intelligent suggestions.

Opera
Opera is the most underappreciated underdog of the FireFox-Internet Explorer browser wars, and that's because it offers some great, innovative features to the table like Speed Dial which assigns a webpage to a number like a real phone, built-in torrent downloading, and mouse gestures. It also has great versions on mobile phones and Wii console (Internet Channel).

***
I'll probably end the download suggestions up to here. If I forget something, then I'll just put it on Part 2. But anyway, all of these apps are must-downloads, and as for the browsers, you'll probably want to check all of them out before settling into one browser.

UNRELATED:
But on a side note, here's a milestone:

I've successfully downloaded my first movie torrent. And the movie? Superbad. I don't know, I'm just curious. It is a Judd Apatow to be honest.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Lotsa stuff to type about today...

======Pinoy Big Brother: What's the hype for? (IMHO)======

The second season has just ended and now there's nothing to see of the other housemates except their appearances in ASAP or Ysabella (sounds like a hair salon if u ask me lol), etc. But this overhyped show has become somewhat annoying and I'm guessing why the heck people still watch it and/or be intrigued by it. I mean, the crazy housemates do indecent things like most notably, bathe in pig's blood (it was a task... and I'll never eat dinuguan again) as well as put a hand in someone's pants (I don't watch the show obviously, so I don't know any names... oh and this one was explicit and intentional). So reiterating my question again, why the heck do people watch this show???!! (sorry, Mr. Spam) And in case you want to know where I got all that data, it's from reading the paper!

======RSS and How It'll Help the Student Body==========

In case you don't know what this is, it's an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. Just click it and you get to subscribe to the so-called feeds. It may arrive in your Inbox (Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook), web mail (My Y!, Google Reader) or a built-in reader inside the browser (Apple Safari). It brings you up-to-the-minute news, stories, etc. from all the different sorts of sites in the web. Heck, you can even use it to subscribe to my blog! Or to anyone else's even! But how will it help the student body, you ask? Well, this sort of technology can be useful for posting homework online or posting news regarding classes whether there will be any or none, etc. I mean, there are so many possibilities, or rather benefits if schools praticed using this...

======Software Reviews=========================

Apple Safari 3 Beta for Windows/Mac

Overall: 8/10

Stability: 7/10

Speed: 9/10

Ease of Use: 8.5/10

Features: 8/10

Apple's browser has become the preferred one to use in Macs, will it be the next one for Windows? Not quite. But though it isn't a Firefox, it's still a diamond-in-the-rough, hence the word Beta, but it's still quite a fast experience in Vista.<-- reading RSS in Safari

My Vista is definitely, undeniably slow, but if I want to load Safari, it only takes a milisecond compared to the few seconds it takes Mozilla (which means that Apple lived up to this promise) but being a beta, its stability is still needing some work as well as the pop-up blocker (check the checkbox that says "Block pop-ups" and it'll literally block ALL pop-ups, so it's quite a hassle to turn this on and off) which is not so smart. But Safari gains plus points for being a great RSS reader as well as an enjoyable Bookmark organizer. I mean, I've NEVER organized my Bookmarks before! But the New Folder button needs to be on top and not necessarily on the bottom like iTunes. All in all, Safari is still needing some work, but if you want to read RSS without having to connect to the Internet, this is the pick. (RSS feeds that can be read offline are the headlines and its summary)

Realplayer 11 Beta

Overall: 7.5/10

Stability: 8/10

Speed: 7.5/10

Ease of Use: 8/10

Features: 7/10

RealPlayer is THE player that can play almost anything. And now, it can play AND download YouTube videos... but not convert it. Of course, that's not the thing that bogs the rating down (it's a big, great blessing to be able to do just that) but the very strict limitation set in the free version. I mean, you can't burn a CD with out subscribing to Rhapsody! That'd be bad news for us Filipinos because we can't do that! It's only open to other countries wherein the nearest is Australia. But still, it's a relatively reliable player and is more stable than other betas (of players) I've tested. Speed is also faster than the last version (and that was when I was still in XP!) and it still has a user-friendly interface. And of course, the only revoulutionary step it took is the recording and downloading of on-demand, live or YouTube web videos (I think this is the first mainstream player that offers this). It also plays DivX, and other formats where you normally waste more time downloading alone (RealPlayer is 15MB compared to 30MB on DivX!)

============Movie Reviews==================

Vacancy Released by Sony Screen Gems

Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale

Rating: 4.5/10

Yawn. It's about a couple who checks in a motel which shows slasher flicks which are actually caught in their own room. Now, they want to escape before they're the ones who become the next stars of the motel's next flick. Obvious ending here... and it's not scary at all. It's a bit absurd even. There are just a small amount of cheap thrills and nothing more. So I don't think you'd want to watch this movie anyway.

Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer released by 20th Century Fox

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon

Rating: 6.5/10 (Yes, it's better than Vacancy)

Childish and occasionally funny, Fantastic 4: ROSS is faster, better and has much more action and meat than the very boring first one but it has its cheesy moments. (Cameo: Stan Lee's a regular in Marvel hero films... and this one is funny actually) The comic book fans, as well as the kiddies will like it more than the ones 10 and up. Oh, and the Thing still has bad, blocky presentation but Chris Evans sizzles the screen as the Human Torch, Ioan Gruffudd is better off as a scientist than a partying type of guy (awful dancing scenes!) and Jessica Alba is... Jessica Alba with bad force field effects.

============Music I'm Listening To========================

Teenagers by My Chemical Romance

*And Catherine, it's not the usual "scary" video, lol

Umbrella by Rihanna

The song doesn't get out of your head... (Umbrella ella ella eh eh eh)

Wait For You by Elliott Yamin