The ever popular and IE beating Firefox browser has just become available as an all new version 2. Althought this is only a release candidate - with the official release due in October - I installed it and found a nice new feature called Microsummaries.

Microsummaries are regularly-updated short summaries of web pages. When you bookmark a web page that has a microsummary, you can choose to display the microsummary as the title of the bookmark. Then, when the page changes, the title will also change, so you can find out the current status of the page just by looking at the bookmark.

So I just knocked up a very quick implementation of Microsummaries for Switchboard. Try it out with yours. Just bookmark your Switchboard in Firefox and you will be given the option to bookmark it using it's Microsummary, which will display the Switchboard's title and the number of new comments.

It's a great way of seeing if your Switchboard has any new comments since you last checked.

You like?

As requested, we have implemented a new skin management system. This new system - accessible via your admin panel - lets you edit, create and delete skins for your Switchboard.

A skin is simply a CSS file that inherits the main Switchboard CSS file. This main CSS file is not editable, but any skin you create inherits its properties, so you can still edit any part of the CSS structure.

You can also publish your skin creations and mark them as public. This will let other Switchboard owners use your public skin and create new skins based off that skin.

Pretty cool, I know. So play around and let us know what you think.

A number of bug fixes have also been applied. Thankfully these were few and far between, and as of this post, we are unaware of any other bugs. But remember, if you find any, please let us know.

Stand by for further updates and new features.

Just read a great article on Techquila Shots about an idea that allows users to comment on any page on any site, even if that site does not allow comments. I know this basic idea has already been done, but the article delves even deeper into the idea.

What really caught my attention, was how I can implement similar concepts directly into Switchboard. The planned external discussions and discussions from feeds features are a great basis for these ideas, and I will be developing them even further, with help from this article.

It also highlights how Switchboard could implement some great social networking features and really empower users to control their comments across all Switchboards. For example, Switchboard 2.0 will have a new single login that will work with any and all Switchboards. So you will be able to manage and track your comments/posts across all Switchboards. You can also track other users comments/posts, and rate them.

I could go on about the many possibilities of this particular aspect, but I won't. I want at least some surprises for you all. But what do you think? Take a look at the article and let me know your thoughts.