The title they chose to go with was “Is the browser going nowhere?” (or “Do new Web tools spell doom for the browser?”). I guess sensationalism is always a useful way to sell articles, but the actual article isn’t quite so melodramatic. The idea is that the traditional browser experience might not be ideal for every application on today’s Web, and that a number of companies are addressing the need for new tools. What tomorrow’s browser might look like — or to what extent it might disappear altogether — remains up in the air.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

As usual, you can download the script here. You should delete the old version by hand before installing this one, because I’ve updated the namespace to reflect my own site instead of Jon Udell’s (finally!).

If you don’t understand what this is all about, check my earlier post on the subject. (And if you don’t live in San Francisco it probably won’t be much use to you anyway. Try a Google search for a similar script that works with libraries in your area.)

Consider, for example, the humble battery. We all bemoan the fact that our portable devices don’t last long enough (or, occasionally, that they explode). But have you ever stopped to think how advances in battery technology have changed personal technology? Without modern lithium-ion batteries the iPod would hardly be possible, and your mobile phone would still look like a brick.

Among the other technologies given an airing are XML (it really is everywhere); managed code like Java and Microsoft .Net; and the mysterious world of digital signal processing, where incredibly complex mathematics gets packaged into chips to let you play your MP3s. Who knew?

Check it out and let know what you think.

Notes: These torrent files do not contain the OS itself. You will need a BitTorrent client to download the actual disc images, and you may also need blank CD-R media to burn them.

If you have a regular Pentium-type system, you should probably choose the i386 option. Only choose amd64 if you know you have either an AMD or Intel 64-bit chip (and you’re sure you want to use the 64-bit version of the OS).

Most people will probably want the desktop version; if you don’t intend to use Ubuntu primarily to run a Web server or some other “back office” purpose, you don’t need to download the server disc at all. You can still install a personal Web server (or any other software) on the desktop version.

(UPDATE 1 May, 2008) - Now that the initial rush has quieted down, I’ve replaced the links listed here with links back to the torrents on the official Ubuntu site. You can see still further download options on the Ubuntu 8.04 release page.)

Here are the links:

• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop/i386
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server/i386
• Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop/amd64
• Ubuntu 8.04 Server/amd64

Astute observers will recall that I’ve owned fatalexception.org for some time, so the choice of titles isn’t entirely a coincidence. But it also means something, which I’ve tried to explain in the first post.

In programming parlance, an exception is some kind of unforeseen condition that raises a red flag in the system. And since the story of computing and the Internet reads like a history of unforeseen developments and unlikely outcomes, I thought the title was a pretty decent choice. Plus it sounds cool.

At any rate, over the coming weeks you can expect me to cover stories relevant to Web and software developers and the people who love them. Sometimes I’ll be on a “big think” level, other times it will be nitty-gritty technical stuff. But the idea here is to help to chronicle the ever-changing world of software and computing and how developers keep on changing it. That will inevitably involve a lot of “Web 2.0″ type stuff, but more traditional software development also.

I should have a new column up each Thursday morning, with maybe some shorter posts interspersed here and there throughout the week, when interesting things pop up. As with my PC World blog, I’ll pull in the RSS feed and list the most recent posts in the righthand column, so this site remains a good place to keep up with everything I’m doing, including any upcoming in-depth articles or features (more of those to come soon).

At any rate, I hope you like the new blog and I can develop it into something that suits you. Please don’t hesitate to send feedback, either here or at InfoWorld.com.

Expect a bit of a departure from my Neil on Software blog at PC World. Instead, this one will take me back to my roots, looking at news, trends, and issues for software developers, with a particular emphasis on the new generation of “Web 2.0″ technologies (hate that term).

Between the two blogs, I should get an opportunity to look at a wide range of stuff that interests me — from basic productivity software and office-oriented how-tos, all the way up to Web frameworks, databases, and scripting languages. (Now all I need is a gig writing about hardware and gadgets — any takers out there?)

As before, I hope to keep an RSS feed of my latest posts here on this site, so one way to keep up with what I’m doing in each of these two “worlds” will be to look here.

More info as I get it. But as it looks right now, the InfoWorld blog could launch as soon as next week — or whenever we think up a title for it, whichever comes later.

Speaking of which, if you have a killer idea for a title for a developer-themed blog that you’re willing to give up, send it my way. If we actually end up using it, I’ll make sure you get something-or-other.

If you want to know more about this script and its history, you can check my earlier post on the subject.

If you just want to dive in and start searching for library books via Amazon, you can download the latest script here. (Note that you must have the GreaseMonkey extension for Firefox installed for this to work.)

But that’s not all. A lot of other reporters have posted really unusual stories this morning. It’s so confounding that the InfoWorld editors have organized the more dubious items into a special report.

I’ve avoided criticizing this release too harshly, since it is still only in beta. More than anything, though, I was pleasantly surprised with how generally stable and functional it is, even in this prerelease form. The new installer is particularly interesting, as it allows you to install Ubuntu onto an existing Windows box without re-partitioning your drive. Click on over to InfoWorld to read my full account.

More than the text, however, the real treat of Kirby: King of Comics is the lavish presentation of Kirby’s art. Never before have I seen comic book art reproduced so faithfully (and if anyone deserves such treatment it surely is Kirby). In fact, when I first peeked inside the book’s covers, I literally gasped.

Where other art books offer simple halftone reproductions of comic art, this one pulls out all the stops. Wherever possible, Kirby’s artwork has been reproduced from the original pages, and a rich, high-fidelity color process has been used throughout — even for black and white originals.

The results are stunning. Pencil marks and under-drawing are indistinct, but visible. The black lines appear as the inker laid them, full of tonal variations and clear brush strokes. Here and there the ink has faded to brown from light damage, or a piece of yellowed transparent tape can be seen. Still other drawings have obvious corrections made in white gouache. As the introduction by Neil Gaiman suggests, this incredible reproduction is truly the next best thing to standing in front of a Kirby original in a museum.

The book covers the span of Kirby’s career, from early, crude newspaper strips and advertising illustrations, to his last regular comics work for the independent publishers of the 80s. The works on display range from pencil roughs, to fully-inked, double-page spreads, to elaborately rendered watercolor presentation drawings. Many of them are marvels to behold (no pun intended).

I confess I never really “got” Kirby as a kid. By the late 1970s, when I was reading comics, artists like John Buscema and Neal Adams had arrived, bringing to comics a slick realism borrowed from the world of commercial illustration. Kirby comics would keep cropping up, and I’d be baffled: Who was this guy who seemingly couldn’t get his head out of 1961, with his weird, blocky anatomy and his ugly faces? Why did they keep hiring him?

It wasn’t until much later that I could fully appreciate Kirby’s genius — his dynamism, his effortless composition, his rich, pleasing use of contrast, his near-endless creativity. Sure, some of his ideas really were pretty hokey; it’s hard to see how kids raised on the X-Men could fall for a gang of teenage hippie-heroes called the Forever People. But had a book like Kirby: King of Comics existed back then, I could at least have appreciated the raw, unadulterated talent of the man.

As for the text, well, it is what it is. If you want a thorough account of Kirby’s life and career, from humble beginnings to accolades late in life, you got it. If you want to talk about whether Stan Lee or Jack Kirby deserves more credit for inventing Marvel’s most memorable characters, or debate the finer points of Kirby’s contractual disputes, you’ll have to look elsewhere. This book makes no effort to criticize much of anything Kirby did, opting instead for a generous, even obsequious tone throughout.

But much of that stuff is lost to history, anyway. The only person who could answer your questions would be Stan Lee, and he’s the first to admit his memory isn’t what it was. What remains are the art and the stories — and I doubt you’ll find a better representation of those than this book.

I give this one my highest recommendation. My only gripe is that, at 224 pages, it could have used a couple hundred more.