Way cool! Here is the Firefox crop circle created in rural Oregon after OSCON. Unfortunately, I wasn’t involved in the crop circle, but I’m still waiting for our Cylon Raider from Foo to hit the maps.
Category Archives: Firefox
New Netvibes Update
Netvibes just released a new update (code named Cinnamon) with new features, new modules, and a better user interface.
I have been using Netvibes for a couple of months, and I use it constantly. I tried more RSS readers than I can count, and I hated all of them. Prior to Netvibes, I could not find any RSS readers that worked better than than the RSS functionality built into Firefox. The beauty of Netvibes is that they manage to cram a bunch of feeds on the screen, but organize it in a way that never seems overwhelming or cluttered. I can see all of the posts from more than a dozen blogs without scrolling, mouse-overs give me the first couple of sentences, and I can chose to read any post within the Netvibes interface or natively as a new tab in Firefox. Almost everything is configurable; I can have multiple tabs; and the content is easily organized by dragging and dropping.
Netvibes has also integrated a number of very useful modules. Michael Arrington uses it daily for one stop access to a variety of web services. I can see my unread Gmail messages, my delicious bookmarks (including sort by tags), the front page stories on Digg, the weather and more from a single page.
The best part is that I rarely have to wait on anything. Quick, configurable, intuitive, and easy to use … everything I want in a web app.
Microsoft Embraces Firefox
OK, so maybe Microsoft has not exactly “embraced” Firefox, but they have invited Mozilla developers to visit Microsoft’s Open Source Software Lab as part of the Windows Vista Readiness Efforts. From Sam Ramji:
I am the Director of the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft, and I’m writing to see if you are open to some 1:1 support in getting Firefox and Thunderbird to run on Vista.
As part of my mission as an advocate for open source applications on Windows, I’ve gotten spaces set aside at the Windows Vista Readiness ISV Lab. In the past the company has only invited commercial software developers to these labs. I’m committed to evolving our thinking beyond commercial companies to include open source projects, so I went to the non-trivial effort of getting slots for non-commercial open source projects. (Quote from: Mozilla.dev.planning post from Sam Ramji)
Matt Mondok thinks this is a positive step in the right direction:
it’s great to see that Microsoft is concerned about projects like Firefox and Thunderbird. Sure, this could be viewed as a publicity stunt since Ramjii posted in a public forum, but that doesn’t make the offer worthless. If this is what needs to happen for Firefox to run unhindered on Vista, then I’m all for it. (Quote from: ars technica)
I am withholding judgment until I see more. I think that we have seen this before with Mono. Miguel de Icaza had a good relationship with the .NET engineers for a while, but more recently has struggled with the PDC group at Microsoft and has been unable to get a Mono BOF at PDC despite great demand for the gathering. The invitation from the Microsoft Open Source Software Lab was probably offered with good intentions; however, any impact (positive or negative) resulting from Mozilla’s involvement may depend on the response from other groups at Microsoft.
Firefox Crop Circle in Oregon
A joint effort between the Oregon State University Linux Users Group, Mozilla, and other volunteers produced this amazing Firefox crop circle near Amity, Oregon. I love these big stunt marketing efforts!
