Bad PR

In a Cnet News.com article about Mozilla's Bug Bounty Program, a Microsoft representative actually said, "We don't pay people to fix bugs." Whoops. That does explain a few things about Windows and Internet Explorer, though. He went on to say, "But there are other ways we try to fix security as much as possible." As much as possible? You try? Windows XP costs up to several hundred dollars and is used by most of the world. Just fix the damn bugs and stop making excuses. If Linspire and Mark Shuttleworth can fund Mozilla's bug hunt, I'll assume Microsoft can afford to fix their own security and stability issues.

I Hate My Modem

I am so tired of my modem crapping out on me and having to reboot to get back online. My favorite part is when Windows asks me to send an error report about it. Every time. Yes, let's connect to the internet to send a report about how my modem has stopped working. That's fucking brilliant.

Anyway, read this article at InformationWeek. They have the numbers to back up what we all knew already: people who know what they're doing use Firefox.

A few days ago, PC news site Ars Technica reported that Firefox had become the No. 1 browser among its readers with 40% market share. Internet Explorer, which stood at 38% last September, has dropped to 30% today.

In addition, between 20% and 40% of visitors to most of the popular blogs are using a Mozilla-based browser, including 36% of the people viewing something called Boing Boing. I have no idea what Boing Boing is, I just know that I'm not clicking on any link to anything called "Boing Boing."

T-Bird Developer and Will Ferrell

Asa has posted another Q&A with a Mozilla developer; this time it's Scott MacGregor, the lead programmer for Thunderbird, the best email client since VAX Mail. It isn't especially compelling, but read it anyway. Bitches.

Meanwhile, I've been watching Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy over and over. At one point, PowerDVD flaked out on me and stopped working. I thought it was trying to tell me to watch another fucking movie, but it turns out I just had to turn off hardware acceleration. That's OK, though. I've gone through all the extra features and heard the director's commentary (if you wanna call it that). I'm ready to move on to obsessing about another movie, like Team America: World Police, if it would ever be released on fucking DVD. I refuse to keep track of this online, but I assume the delay has to do with Parker and Stone having to rush to produce new South Park's. Tonight's new episode was about the Sony PSP and Terri Schiavo, so SP is clearly what they've been concentrating on lately. Oh well. We can wait.

Oh, and my neighbors' PC had a separate partition for system restores, and running one didn't fix it. On boot, there's an error in post that says the "Atapi IDE CD-ROM device driver" is missing. I have no idea what that driver's filename is, or where the hell I can find it, or how I can load it without a CD-ROM drive. So I guess that box is screwed, because I can't format the HD and reinstall Win98 SE: it's a Compaq. When you live in Frayser, it's important that your neighbors like you, but I just don't see how I can get this to work.

Pixar and More Camino

I've seen The Incredibles four times now, and it just doesn't get old. I'm definitely enjoying it more from my computer than from the 32-inch TV; this movie was mastered for high-res from the source material, and you can only take advantage of it with a computer monitor or a high-def TV. As for other DVD's, all I really want right now is Shaun of the Dead, which I haven't found used yet, and Team America: World Police. We're all still waiting for that release.

Josh Aas (Boom Swagger Boom) has an interesting post on the speed advantage of Camino over Firefox. So I guess there is a reason to use Camino if you have a Mac.

I've got my neighbors' old Compaq sitting next to me right now. I've been trying to install their new CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive for them, but this POS won't take it. Haven't figured out why yet, but I'll get there. I'm starting to suspect that the motherboard's IDE controller is fucked. It's a used PC, circa 2000, and has never had a Windows reinstall, but it's a Compaq and it probably will only take a system restore, not a clean Win98 SE installation, so I'm hesitant to format it. I guess I'd be more into this if they were paying me.

Camino, Zips, and Cake

A beautiful new site has been launched dedicated to spreading Camino, the Mozilla Foundation's Gecko-based Mac-only web browser. Think of it as a more Apple-centric edition of the cross-platform Firefox.

MoFo's Chase Phillips has provided an explanation for why new final releases of Firefox and Thunderbird are no longer being posted as zip files as well as self-installers. It's mildly technical, but it breaks down like this: using the executables is easier and causes fewer headaches when upgrading, so stop using the zips.

I was digging through a pile of old CDs the other day and came across the soundtrack from The Matrix, which I didn't even know I had. So I've finally found a new CD for my car stereo. I've been playing Cake's latest album, Pressure Chief, every time I got in my truck since I bought it the day it was released.

Update: Screw The Matrix, I also found my copy of "The Elephant Riders" by Clutch. Now that's drivin' around music.

Thunderbird Security Update

Thunderbird 1.0.2 was released yesterday. It's a "background" update from 1.0, with the Gecko security fixes and stability upgrades in Firefox 1.0.1 and Mozilla Suite 1.7.6, which also went public yesterday. If you're not using Thunderbird as your primary email app, you should be. If you already are, here's the easiest way to upgrade in Windows:

1. Download Thunderbird 1.0.2
2. Uninstall Thunderbird 1.0 (using Add/Remove Programs) and do not remove the program folder, usually c:/Program Files/Mozilla Thunderbird/
3. Run the 1.0.2 installer

That's it. Your accounts, messages, folders, settings, themes, and extensions will be automatically maintained.

In frontline news from the browser wars, News.com as a lengthy and detailed article on why Firefox is making such a dent in Internet Explorer's market share, and whether the Mozilla Foundation can keep this up.

Previous open-source products had a high geek factor: You had to be a geek to run them. Firefox is the first time consumers really chose an open source product.

In other words, Firefox is in the perfect situation for an underdog: It's a great application, and it's competing against a bloated, out-dated, and dangerously vulnerable browser in Internet Explorer.

Firefox Wallpaper

I finally posted an original Firefox wallpaper on deviantART today. You can find it alongside my four (so far) Memphis Grizzlies wallpapers under my profile. I made it from scratch for my own use, but I liked it so much I adapted it for 1280x1024 and posted it. Look for more Firefox and Mozilla wallpapers soon.

Installed the latest Opera beta (Opera 8 beta 3), and aside from the usual adjustment phase, I like it. The interface is significantly different from a Gecko or Internet Explorer-based browser, and can be confusing for a few minutes. But soon enough it's humming along nicely. But again, unless you're willing to spend $39 to register and get rid of the ad banners, just go with Firefox or Avant Browser.

I borrowed my neighbors' rental of Collateral, and I love it. Just a fantastic, riveting movie. Very reminiscent of the first time I saw Heat, Michael Mann's most comparable film, in that I immediately thought, "I have to watch this again." At first it was the novelty of Tom Cruise as the bad guy, but you forget about that very quickly because his performance is just so convincing. Definitely my recommended rental of the year, edging out Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Of course, I haven't gotten my hands on The Incredibles yet...

The Death of Seamonkey

As I posted on my Memphis Grizzlies fanblog, I've started posting Griz wallpapers at deviantART. What I'm going for in these wallpapers is simplicity and usability, and I've ended up with some .xcf templates that I can easily adapt for Mozilla wallpapers, so look for those soon. Everything I've posted can be found at shiftedblue.deviantart.com.

The Mozilla Foundation has finally made it official: Seamonkey, the codebase for the Mozilla Application Suite, will no longer be developed. As it turns out, the 1.8 alpha and beta releases of Mozilla Suite were essentially testbeds for the Gecko branch underlying Firefox 1.0.1 and Thunderbird 1.0.1.

There's already a movement to keep Seamonkey alive, as I predicted in a previous post. I think this is good for Mozilla in the end, and is certainly the whole point of open-source software. But really, focusing on Firefox and Thunderbird is the right thing to do. As a combo, they just out-class the Mozilla Suite in every category.

Interstates and Insecurities

I drove down to Olive Branch today for something about a shower or my cousin, or, my grandparents were there... I don't really know, I wasn't paying attention. I just know all the women on my mom's side of the family went somewhere, while I and my cousin and uncle and granddad sat at the house to watch golf and NCAA basketball. But somehow I'm going to have to go to Greenville, MS, for my cousin's wedding in August. I don't even know where Greenville is, or if it's a real place, I just know I have to buy a fucking suit or something, and I hope to God I'm not going to be involved in the whole wedding process. I was an usher at a Catholic wedding once, and it was hell.

Mike Connor raises some disturbing red flags on future Firefox development in a blog post yesterday. Seems he's not at all confident in the current state of Mozilla Foundation's Firefox hacker check-ins, and thinks 1.5 could be pushed back to next year. This is the first serious whiff of internal dissent we've had from MoFo (though Mike is not on MoFo's payroll). We don't know if this a real sign of future issues. I expect either Mitchell Baker or Blake Ross to respond shortly.

As an outside observer, Mike has been a significant contributor to the success of Firefox, and I hope his self-imposed boycott of Firefox hacker check-ins is short-lived. If there's one thing Mozilla doesn't need now that Microsoft has realized the threat they pose, it's affiliated programmers or hackers jumping ship for political reasons.

Firefox for Dummies

How Stuff Works has posted a sort of beginners' introduction to Firefox and browsers in general, called, aptly, How Firefox Works. Definitely a recommended link for anyone you may be attempting to convince to switch to Firefox (or any other Gecko-based browser) full-time.

Firefox co-creator Blake Ross is -- let's just say "irritated" -- by the latest Netscape Browser release. He has some very pointed and fair criticisms directed primarily towards whoever AOL has contracted to do their software development for them and for the marketing boardroom-types who seem to have been major influences in how the 8.0 beta turned out.

I'm trying to get this post typed out as quickly as possible, before my internet connection suddenly craps out and I have to reboot to get back online. I've narrowed it down to either my modem itself (and old USR pre-v2-standards 56K), or the Win2K/XP drivers for it. It's most likely the drivers, as I seem to lose connectivity when loading a page that pulls from multiple servers simultanously, like a Google image search or an RSS aggregation source. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find XP-specific drivers for this modem, and I'm hesitant to start arbitrarily installing alternative "maybe it'll work, but probably not" candidates. Oh well. Who needs to search the web anyway?

Netscape Browser 8.0 Beta

I'm using the new Netscape Browser beta that was released this morning. While it's vastly improved over the release candidate circulated last November, it's still essentially a mucked-up Firefox 1.0. This isn't all that bad, since this makes for the best Netscape release ever (even in beta form), but it's a very convoluted and complex browser, and in no way is this recommended for computer newbies of any kind. It's difficult to configure and awkwardly designed.

First, there's the toolbars. It took me a moment to realized that the Stop and Reload button had been combined. I suppose this makes sense, but what's the point, really? There's an integrated search bar to the left of the location bar, but it's set to Netscape's search engine, and cannot be changed. Ignoring the browser's Passcard functionality, which combines form filling with a password manager and which I have no interest in using, we come to what Netscape calls the Multibar.

There are five default trays that can be toggled in the browser-width multibar via tiny numbered tabs under the navigation controls: 1. a weather drop-down menu, a webmail tab (set to Netscape webmail, of course), a business ticker, a "Shopping" link, and a link for beta feedback; 2. Three separate news tickers; 3. a "Local" tray with more weather, a maps pull-down, and a Yellow Pages link; 4. your imported bookmarks; and 5. "Blank." Got all that? Seem needlessly complicated? It is.

This is further confused by the Customize Toolbar dialog, which, like Firefox's, allows drag-and-drop, but now has four tabs to categorize the scores of buttons and several drop-down menus for individual toolbar settings (remember, there are six now). The Options window is even worse. There are seven catagories with a total of fourteen pages of obscure, badly documented checkboxes, blanks, and pull-downs. Keep in mind that Netscape Browser has maybe two or three major features over Firefox (not counting common Firefox extensions), yet there are three times as many things to worry about in the options and preferences windows. People, I've been doing this for ten years, and at first I was a bit bewildered by this thing.

But the good news is that very little actually needs to be changed from default. It imported my Firefox 1.0.1 bookmarks, cookies, home page, history, etc., and I simply set the multibar to my bookmarks and left it there. The default theme is tad too far on the teal side, but it's clean and certainly unique. The 8.0 beta has also retained Firefox's Live Bookmarks, one of the premier features of the browser, and the primary reason I stick with Firefox day-to-day over Mozilla, Opera, K-Meleon, etc.

On the beta issues side, there seems to be an issue with the rendering engine that keeps certain pages (like the Google front page) from being drawn until the entire page has been cached, if at all, a problem exacerbated by the combination of the Stop and Reload buttons. 8.0 beta also does not incorporate the Gecko branch updates in Firefox 1.0.1, which includes some major security fixes. So this browser is not yet ready for full-time use, but it looks promising, at least as promising as the new Opera 6 beta 2.

Still, unless you really need various news, stock, and weather tickers and don't want to fool with installing Firefox extensions (which, I have to point out, is easier to do than configuring the tickers already integrated into Netscape), Netscape Browser remains obsolete in the face of Firefox 1.0.1. It's a nice try, but re-branded browsers are just rarely worth the effort. I'll stick with it for a while, and I'll let you know if I change my mind.