The Blog Year In Review: August 2006

August 2006, begins with the announcement Firefox had been download over 200 million times! But the news was not all good, reports of a Trojan-Horse within a Firefox extension and Firefox 2 is delayed yet again ( but Beta 2 would get released). Then there was the much unexpected Firefox 1.5.0.6 release. Also featured a couple neat Firefox related sites. Plus the huge out-cry over the Windows Vista Boot up Sound!

• Big celebration at the beginning of August with the news of the 200 Millionth download of Firefox. In case you are wondering as of this writing the number of download is now around 277 Million!
• A modified Numbered Links 0.9 extension (Trojan-Horse captured and sent banking information along with passwords. This was installed when user inadvertently installed a piece of Windows malware, Downloader-AXM. The malware was contained (as an attachment) within a spoof e-mail from WalMart.com. The moral of the story: don’t open e-mail attachments!

• More delays for Firefox 2, this time the Beta 2 release. This delay was so the developers could finish up the visual refresh for Firefox 2. Sadly though, it would get delayed again because of the burrito-overflow bug.
• However there was some good news with Firefox 2. A NewsForge interview with Mozilla Corp.’s Vice President of Engineering, Mike Schroepfer touches on Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 release schedules.
• Within a few days of the latest Firefox 1.5 update, Mozilla had to do an emergency release with Firefox 1.5.0.6. This fixed the problems with Windows Media Player plug-in not working that were created with the 1.5.0.5 release.

• With all the delays with Firefox 2b2 and since things were quiet with the 1.5 builds, I did a few Something Different posts. Let’s start with An Unusual Way To Promote Firefox, then lets take a tour of The Mozilla Museum!

• In late August Microsoft found another way to annoy the future Windows Vistas users. They had announced users would not be allowed to disable The Windows Vista Boot-up Sound.

“A short, brief, positive confirmation that your machine is now conscious and ready to react.”

Steve Ball, Program Manager, Windows Audio Video Excellence Team

• It’s the last day of August and it’s finally here! The Firefox 2 Beta 2 Milestone that is! This milestone release included the much anticipated Visual Refresh and a couple minor tweaks.

July

2006 Index

September

The Blog Year In Review: July 2006

July 2006, was a bit of a slow month here on The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog with a handful of posts. But it is quality not quantity that counts. Topics ranged from Microsoft’s big announcement for Windows users an interview with Blake Ross to the first beta of Firefox 2 as well as Firefox 1.5.0.5 release.

• With the upcoming release of IE7 Microsoft announced that not only would IE7 not support Win98/98 SE/Me and XP w/ SP1 but they would be discontinuing support/updates of these older versions later in the year. In some ways this was a good thing for Firefox since Firefox 2 would support these older versions.

• The Seattle Post Intelligencer (Todd Bishop) interviewed Firefox co-founder Blake Ross at Gnomedex. This was one of my favorite and also research intensive posts. Topics ranged from Firefox 2 to IE7 as well Microsoft essentially abandoning IE.
• Firefox 2 Beta 1 was released mid way through July. This release added Undo Closed Tab, Inline Spell checking features along with improvements to the anti-phishing protection. The “you either love it or hate it” tab-overflow was also added in this release.

• Once again the final release of Firefox 2 gets pushed back (this time to the end of September). This post included a link to the “Historical” release schedule.
• Towards the end of July, Firefox & Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 were released. Ah yes Firefox 1.5.0.5, a simple update with security fixes and changes to Frisian locale (fy-NL). However it created a new and bigger problem as we would learn in a matter of a couple of days.

June

2006 Index

August

The Blog Year In Review: June 2006

June 2006, started off with updates for both Firefox and Thunderbird and the next milestone for Firefox 2. In keeping with my name (Extension Guru) I reviewed several extensions. Then there were the all the problems associated with extensions, from memory leaks to failure to install (or uninstall). If the extensions weren’t trouble enough throw in a malfunctioning theme!

• We started off June with updates to version 1.5.0.4 for both Firefox and Thunderbird (which jumped from version 1.5.0.2). These were minor updates to improve stability and take care of some security issues.

• While, Firefox 2 Alpha 3 was technically released on May 26th (the Friday before Memorial Day) I didn’t get a chance to review and play with it until after the holiday weekend. This release gave us our first glimpse of the new anti-phishing protection.
• The first major extension write-up since the ill-fated Blue Frog was the very popular Spellbound extensions. Spellbound & Spellbound Developmental Version added a spell checker (the Developmental Version added in-line) right into Firefox. Both of these spell checker extensions are now defunked thanks Firefox 2’s automatic spell check. However if you are still using Firefox 1.5.0.9 you could still use these (with some work).
• In a prefect world every website would load in Firefox. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a prefect world and there are those sites (Microsoft) that refuse to load in Firefox. You could either have Firefox open along with Internet Exploiter (IE) or you could get IE Tab. This wonderful extension would open and display the page using IE right in a Firefox tab! Works for 99% of the sites that demand to be viewed in Internet Exploiter.
• Most of the time I am on the computer, I am surfing the web and listening to music with WinAmp. While normally, I don’t need to do much with WinAmp occasionally I need to stop or pause the player. Say I come across a blog with an embed video, I used to have to either play alt-tab roulette or hunt for WinAmp in the taskbar. Then I found FoxyTunes, which allows you to control WinAmp (and most other media players) right from Firefox (or Thunderbird or Flock).
• The day after I reviewed Foxy Tunes, the developer left a comment an invitation to try out the beta FoxyTunes 2. This made Foxy Tunes even better by adding direct links to AMG, Wikipedia, Amazon, iTunes and more.
• Around this time Firefox seemed to have developed issues with memory leaks. Turns out there were some extensions that had some serious memory issues. There were also other problematic extensions that did not play well each other.
• Okay so you decided to a little extension house keeping but you had an extension that just would not go away. Or may be you accidentally ran the Firefox 2 Alpha 3 with your Firefox 1.5 profile and none of your extensions are functional. mozillaZine Knowledge Base to the rescue with this troubleshooting guide.

The Pimpzilla Theme ~ Click For Full-Size

• Finally got the extension situation under control, but now your Firefox is still not quite right. Somethings are missing from the menus or the display is all funky. Could be that theme you installed earlier.

May

2006 Index

July

The Blog Year In Review: May 2006

May 2006, was the beginning of The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog! It was also a big month for Firefox 2 as well as the death of Blue Frog Anti-Spam.

• The inaugural blog post from when we were on Blogger: A Blog is Born! Yikes, those last eight months have gone by fast!
• Mozilla’s Mike Schroepfer, justifies the removal of the Places feature from the then future Firefox 2 (as well keeping the Firefox 2 numbering) in my commentary on this interview Excellent Move Mr. Schroepfer! This was also the first Firefox 2 post!
• Then there was Blue Frog, what was going to be a simple extension review turned into a major headache when the service was hijacked by spammers. Two weeks later that was the end of Blue Frog and the last time I check an extension for someone. Okay, well may not the last time, but after that mess it would be a while before I did that again.
• Firefox 1.5.0.3 was released in the early part of the month, a major security update to fix vulnerabilities which caused Denial of Service attacks.

• I took a break from the usual Firefox posts to write about The Phoenix Suns in the NBA playoffs. The Year of The Suns was a three part series which followed the Suns as they made it through the playoffs but not to the finals. Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
• Meanwhile in mid May, Firefox 2 Alpha 2 was released. A New Milestone for FF 2.0 not only announced the milestone but included a comprehensive review of the new features.

• Firefox updates are a touchy area for some folks. On one hand, it is good that Mozilla provides frequent updates to Firefox, but on the other hand, some folks found these updates ill-timed or intrusive. In Keeping Your Firefox Updated I explained how you can take control of when and how your Firefox updates.

2006 Index

June

Blog Year in Review: 2006 Index

Note: The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog was not ‘born’ until May 1, 2006.

• May
• June
• July
• August
• September
• October
• November
• December

Happy 2007!

Happy New Years!!!

Here’s to a wonderful 2007! I had plan on doing a year in review for The Firefox Extension Guru’s Blog. But there is one minor problem…the blog didn’t start until May! So, I’ll review the past 7 Blog months (May-December). I plan on having May, June, July and August up by late New Year’s Eve and September, October, November and December on New Years Day.

Help with Minefield Error

I posted this over on the mozillaZine Firefox Builds forum, but haven’t got much help there. Last night I tried several times to update my Minefield from an older build:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a2pre) Gecko/20061224 Minefield/3.0a2pre ID:2006122404 [cairo]

But either I would get an error message similar to this one or else the update would just fail. Now I was able to update last night after four or five attempts to the latest nightly. This morning for the heck of it I tried and updated once again (on the first attempt) to the newest build:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a2pre) Gecko/20061231 Minefield/3.0a2pre ID:2006123104 [cairo]

However as soon as I exited Minefield I got the error message again. So I am posting this here to see if anyone else who is using the Minefield Nightly builds can shed some light on this.Some one the forum suggested trying a new profile. I haven’t yet but wondering if the install of Minefield is corrupt. Further, I am having no problems though updating my Bon Echo to the current nightly build:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.2pre) Gecko/20061231 BonEcho/2.0.0.2pre ID:2006123103

A Blog Search Engine?

Okay, I admit I am still relatively new (started in May) to this whole blogging thing. I will also admit, I never gave much thought to a Blog Search Engine until I came across these articles; The State of Blog Search Engines: Depressing as well as Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati.

So this got me thinking, “What is the difference between a normal and a blog search engine”. Okay other than the obvious, a blog search engine only searches blogs. But doesn’t a normal search engine search blogs as well? Further how does a blog search engine only search blogs?

The first article (The State of Blog Search Engines: Depressing) mentions a couple blog search engines, IceRocket Blog Search as well as BlogDigger. The second article (Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati) mentioned Google Blog Search and Technorati. Up until tonight I had never looked (much less heard) of these search engines. Now I took a very comprehensive look at these four Blog search engines.

Overview: The basics, what it looks like and what it can do.

BlogDigger

• Will also search Links, Media, Groups and offers a Local feature
• Does not have an advanced search feature
• Contains Ads By Google (at top of results and on side)
• Does not allow you to refine by date
• Sort results by date (or relevance) then by post time

Goggle Blog Search

• Will also search everything else Google Searches (web, images, news, groups, etc.)
• Search by author, title, URL (but not tags) in Advanced Search
• Does NOT contains ads (ironic)
• Allows you to search within date range via Advanced Search
• Narrow search by published time from 1 hour, 12 hours, past day, past week, past month or Choose Dates (via results screen)
• Search for post written in a particular (one) language
• Sort by relevance or by date (via results screen)

IceRocket Blog Search

• Will also search Web, MySpace, News and Images
• Search by author, title or tag in Advanced Search
• No ads
• Allows you to refine search to today, past week, past month or custom
• Sort results by date only (no relevance option) then by number of words
• Results displayed under date header

Technorati

• Will search Blogs, Tags and Blog Directories
• Limited Advanced Search
• Annoying animated ads and one Ad By Google at top of results
• No option to search within date range
• Refine results by a particular (one) language (via results screen)
• Sorts by date only

The Test: To try these blog search engines out, I did basic search for my handle, ffextensionguru:

• BlogDigger: Found nothing!
• IceRocket: Only found references to my handle (mainly CyberNet articles).
• Goggle Blog Search: Found references to my handle, an article from my blog, ping-back to my blog and my defunked blog on blogger. Also listed my blog on the results screen as Related Blogs.
• Technorati: Found references to my handle and tons of articles from my blog

The Verdicts: Here is how the search sites ranked based on search results, site design as well as search options:

• BlogDigger was a major disappointment and not just because it could not find any results but the lack of an advanced search as well as the abundance of Ads by Google. Also would not allow search results (not that I had any) to be narrowed by date.
• Google Blog Search gave good results allbeit limited. Did like that the results could be narrowed within a time range. No ads on the search site was nice too. Offers a lot of options under advanced search.
• IceRocket was very fast and has a nice clean looking site (design and no ads). Liked how the results were shown below date headers. However, did not find any of my blog posts.
• Technorati did find the most results, but the site itself offered limited search options and I really didn’t care for the animated ads. Further the site seemed a bit sluggish when I was trying to go to the next page of results. Also didn’t like that I could not narrow the results within a date range.

Now if I could just find something that combined the search power and options of Google with the layout, design and speed of IceRocket, I would really be happy. :)

News Source: Google ahead, Technorati behind

Open-Source Predictions For 2007

Open-Source Predictions for 2007

“Open source came out on strong in 2006.Open-source web browser Firefox gained market share against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer with more than 200 million downloads. OpenOffice.org, the open-source productivity suite, was used on desktops by more than 200 million people.”

I think it is note-worthy to mention that a common “theme” throughout this article is the open-source operating system, Linux. Ryan (CyberNet) and I discussed this “theme” a bit on the CyberNet Forum:

“And with as much as I like Vista I think this is a very valid point:

Open source advocates would like to believe that Vista, the new version of Microsoft Windows operating system, will fail to appeal to businesses and consumers because of its high cost, security issues, and closed nature (see Linux Faithful: Vista No Threat and Vista is Bad for You, FSF Says). “Vista won’t set the world on fire,” says open-source supporter Eric Raymond. “It will limp through 2007 looking lamer and lamer as it becomes evident that it’s not more than a glorified service pack, and one that completely fails to solve Microsoft’s security and reliability problems.”

I don’t think most people are going to switch to Windows Vista until it comes pre-installed on their PC’s.”
I have to agree with Ryan here, the only way I will ever get Vista is if I buy a new PC with Vista pre-installed or if Mozilla were to stop support for WinXP (could happen with Firefox 4 in late 2008), but even in the case of the latter, I would just switch to Linux instead.

News Source: Red-Herring

Alt Predictions 2007

Not your ordinary or boring predictions, Wired News columnist Lore Sjöberg goes out on a limb. Predictions include New RIAA Lawsuits, Nintendo Wii & Aliens, images from Mars, Nokia’s newest ‘do everything’ (sort of) cellphone, and more…including my personal favorite prediction, this one about Google:

“After another round of acquisitions, including MySpace, Flickr, Yelp and Barry’s Totally Awesome Whitesnake Tribute Page, Google runs out of websites to buy. It decides accordingly to acquire itself for an unprecedented $10.4 billion in stock. “Google is the leader in search and a strong competitor in several other online venues,” says a Google spokesman. “It’s only natural that Google would want to partner with such an internet powerhouse. That’s why we’re proud to announce Google Google, which will be in beta for the next 15 years.”

Check them all (sadly nothing about Firefox though) out here at Wired News: Alt Predictions for 2007