Firefox 2.0 RC1 Update

According to Mozilla Links, a new release candidate (RC2) is scheduled for October 6. Here is a break down of some the bugs to be fixed from the mozilla.dev.planning thread in Google (for more detailed info on the below bugs go to bugzilla and enter the 6-digit bug number):

• Bug 353160 ~ Unable to enter text into password field of Java Applett
• Bug 353264 ~ ?
• Bug 353266 ~ ?
• Bug 353628 ~ eBay zh-TW uses wrong input encoding
• Bug 353467 ~ [en-GB] updates to extra-jar.mn needed to stop tinderbox burning
• Bug 353271 ~ Update Firefox help content to 2.0
• Bug 353485 ~ Revert installer to en-US due to missing charset

Note for Bugs 353264 & 353266, I do not have high enough authorization on my bugzilla accounts to view info on these bugs. If any one does have proper authorization, please let me know what these two bugs are pertaining too (or at least why they have a higher access requirement).

One thing you may be noticing now since RC1 came out earlier this week is a larger number of theme and extensions update. Many of the add-ons developers waited for RC1 before they released their FF 2.0 add-ons. Look for more updates in the coming weeks as we get closer to the final release of Firefox 2.0.

Blogged with Flock

More Coming Soon…

Been busy with some other things (Opera 9.02 and Flock 0.7) the past couple days and I have not had a chance to review my regular tech news sites. Look for some new entries coming on Sunday, October 1st.

University of Phoenix or Pink Taco?

Another slow news day in the Mozilla World. Firefox 2.0 RC1 has been released and Wednesday’s nightly build of Thunderbird fixed bug 354829 (see Thunderbird 2.0b1 (20060926 Nightly Build) Problem). So something different, very different. This season the Arizona Cardinals moved to their brand new stadium in Glendale. Prior they had been playing at my alma mater Arizona State University’s Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. For the past couple months it has simply been called the Cardinals Stadium. In August, Las Vegas based Pink Taco offered the Cardinals $30 Million for 10 years for the rights to call it ‘Pink Taco Stadium’. The Cardinals were not interested and ’sack’ the ‘Pink Taco’ Stadium idea, calling it a publicity stunt. Earlier this week the Cardinals announced the new name University of Phoenix of Stadium, a $154 Million for 20 years deal.

For those of you unfamiliar with the University of Phoenix, they are a private college with 39 campus in several US cities (including Phoenix) and a couple in Canada as well as online, operated by The Apollo Group. The school is designed for working professionals who seek to earn their degree while employed full time.

This naming is about as bad as earlier this year when the home of the Phoenix Suns, America West Arena was renamed to US Airways Center (USAC) as a result of the merger of the two airlines. That sounds more like a business park then an arena. Around the same time the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, Bank One Ballpark (BOB) became Chase Field as a result of the merger between those two institutions. Chase Field isn’t too bad, at least it is an appropriate name for a baseball park.

I would have taken Pink Taco Stadium any day over University of Phoenix, but looks like we are stuck with the name for the next 20 years. Never has a professional sporting venue been named after a school. At least Pink Taco was something different and may be the Cardinals could have gotten a Pink Taco restaurant at the stadium out the deal as well. I will close with this outstanding comment made on the East Valley Tribune’s online forum: “Nothing like complaining of 15+ years playing in a college stadium to naming your new venue after a private university/school. I’m sure the NCAA will love playing thei Fiesta Bowl and now National Championship game in University of Phoenix Stadium.”

The Ultimate Digital Camera

Digital Camera technology is ever evolving and as the technology gets better the prices come down. For those who are looking for the Ultimate Digital Camera check out the 160 Megapixel Seitz 6×17 Digital Camera on CyberNet News. This camera will be selling in 2007 with both a mobile and studio version starting at $36K & $46K respectfully!

Seitz 6×17 Digital
Camera Body: 19.5″ w x 6.9″ h x 3.75″ d @ 6.2 lbs

Here are the specs:

• 300 MB raw data per second!
• 48-bit color depth
• ISO range from 500 to 10,000
• up to 6×17 digital image (160 million pixels/160 mega pixels @ a resolution of 7,500 x 21,250 pixels)
• 640×480 resolution display touch screen

This camera also comes with a ‘Mac mini’ [1.66Hz Intel Core Duo (2 MB Cache, 2 GB RAM, Mac OS X, Windows XP)] to process as well as store the images which at this high of a resolution are going to be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1 GB! From the CyberNet News site are a couple links to pictures taken with other high resolution cameras (high speed connection recommended). Plan on spending quite a bit of time exploring (panning and zooming) these two pictures:

• Sydney by Night – 720 Mega Pixels
• Machu Picchu, Peru - 222 Mega Pixels(Cannon 20D, 222)

Firefox 2.0 RC1 Milestone Released!

The next Firefox 2.0 milestone, RC1 was released as scheduled (what a novel concept) on Tuesday, September 26th. For those who are upgrading from Beta 2 you will notice the new theme as I had described in the Firefox 2.0 Theme Update Continues entry from September 12th. This is really the only noticeable change I can see since Beta 2 was released. I am sure there have been many ‘behind-the-scenes’ bug and security fixes. But then again there may be something I missed since I am part of the ‘nightly crew’. Here are the Firefox 2 RC1 release notes.

Please note that at this time, users should not expect all of their extensions, plugins and themes from previous versions of Firefox to work properly.

You can get your copy via the Mozilla FTP site or if that is too complicated visit CyberNet News and use Ryan’s drop-down menu loader (widget) by selecting your desired build language and the click the button for your OS.

Reading the Firefox Builds Forums on mozillaZine, does sound like there will be an RC2 at some point, don’t know when yet. I did check the Mozilla Developer’s Calendar and nothing new there at this time.

Thunderbird 2.0b1 (20060926 Nightly Build) Problem

Users who downloaded and installed the nightly Thunderbird 2.0b1 (20060926) build are getting this wonderful mess…

This is very similar to the mess I had when I had the ‘Buttons!’ Extension enabled. As before, the first thing I did was start disabling my Thunderbird Extensions one-by-one and restart. After disabling all 4 of my extensions this did not go away. Now usually what is displayed in red gives a hint to the offending extension, but I soon relaized I am not using a ‘Spellcheck’ extensions with Thunderbird and for that matter I have no more extensions to disable.

Next it was off to mozillaZine to look at the nightly builds thread and sure enough..meet Bug 354289! It looks like it is Thunderbird’s turn to be the victim of a ‘Microsoft’ (fixing one problem causes new problem). As of this writing the bug status is still open. However, it looks as if it has been resolved and when the next nightly is pushed through Thunderbird should work correctly. In the mean time you can always download and manually install the current tinderbox build. I did this and my Thunderbird is working correctly. Now I need to re-enable all my extensions (all four of them).

Preview: Windows Vista Start-Up Sound

As I mentioned in my Update: Windows Vista Start-Up Sound post earlier today there has been a lot of ‘commotion’ about the Windows Vista Start-Up Sound when Microsoft first hinted we would not be able to disable the sound. Last night thanks to the More “Spiritual” Startup Sound In Windows Vista? article on CyberNet News, I was able to hear the ’spiritual’ startup sound. The video is about 8 seconds, of which about 2 seconds is the start-up sound.  Oddly enough this is about the same length as the current XP Start-Up sound.

Update: Windows Vista Start-Up Sound

I guess enough folks finally complained loudly enough for Microsoft to listen to them! Last month I talked about the Windows Vista start-up/boot-up sound ‘crisis’ in my entry: Windows Vista Boot-Up Sound. On Sunday (Sept 24th), comes some good news, via CyberNet News: Microsoft Lets Users Disable Vista’s Startup Sound:

In the latest build, version 5728 that was just released the other day, you’ll find a new option in the Sound Control Panel. There is a checkbox that says “Play Windows Startup Sound”

Never understood what the big deal was to Microsoft about the start-up sound. Though it seems Microsoft wants to still have control over the start-up sound, since they do not give the user and option to change the sound played at start-up. I guess we should consider this a ‘compromise’ on Microsoft’s part!

Firefox 2.0 RC1 & Status

As of late last night, the Mozilla Developers Calendar for Firefox 2.0, still shows RC1 to be shipped/released tomorrow (Sept 26th). No other dates have been added for future release candidates or the final build. But, the last ‘Bon Echo Status Meeting’ is still scheduled for October 24th, which is still the tentative final release date of Firefox 2.0.

However at this point in Firefox 2.0’s development, everything now hangs on what happens once RC1 comes out. Remember, Release Candidates (RC) are essentially the finished product feature wise, but may still have some minor bugs that need to be fixed. RC’s typically have more folks testing as they are much stabler/safer builds then say Alpha or Beta builds. Typically I have seen around 2 to 3 RC’s before the final build is released.

With a little under a month left for the current estimated final release date, there should be more than enough time to work out any minor bugs. Nonetheless, given the number of delays just getting beta 2 out and the fact the project is now about a month behind the original schedule, I am not making any bets for an October 24th release date.  I will say this though, at least Firefox 2.0’s release schedule hasn’t deviated as badly as that of Windows Vista!

No Tabs For Thunderbird 2.0

One of the new features that is still on the Thunderbird 2.0 Road Map is ‘Tabbed Messages’.  The way this feature was suppose to work was allow you to open/view multiple messages in the preview pane switching between tabs.  Presently, each message when opened, opens in its own window. Take a look at this screen-shot from bugzilla bug 297379 to get an idea of how this would work.  There is another screen-shot showing an interesting idea on how to use tabs on the compose screen.  Unlike the first screen-shot,  the second one is from Sylpheed-Claws, which is an open-source mail client based on GTK+.  It UI is a bit more advanced than Thunderbird’s and does provide some inspiration for integrating tabs into Thunderbird.

Now, looking back through Bug 297379 one notices it was started back in June 2005 by Myk Melez.  Digging through the comments in the bug report we learn in comment #52 Myk was had been assigned away from the Thunderbird 2.0 project.  He had hoped someone would pick-up where he had left off on this idea/bug, but it appears no one has.

For those wondering looks like Thunderbird 2.0 is going to be coming out after Firefox 2.0.  The release schedule on the Roadmap shows late November or early December.  Not surprising since Thunderbird is still officially (as per milestones) only in the Alpha stage.  Although they did release Pre-Beta 1 builds over the past two weekends those are only nightlies and not milestone releases.