Fx 2.0.0.11 Released

Well this is a new record, two Firefox releases on the same branch in the same week.  Today Mozilla pushed out Fx 2.0.0.11 to fix (for some) a major regression in the Fx 2.0.0.10 release from earlier this week. As is normal practice, most users will get an update notfication within the next 24-48 hours.  Alternatively, users can get the new version by going to the Help Menu and selecting Check For Updates… or via getfirefox.com. For more information see the Fx 2.0.0.11 release notes.

Fx 2.0.0.11 Coming 11/30?!

Now wait a minute, according to my Releases page, Fx 2.0.0.10 just came out on Monday, November 26th.  Two Firefox releases on the same branch in the same week?  It could happen.  Seems to be a serious regression in the recently release version 2.0.0.10 build earlier this week.

From Mozilla Links:

A bug in just released Firefox 2.0.0.10 affecting an important <canvas> HTML element interface (.drawImage) has prompted Mozilla developers to rush a new update that fixes this bug that affects several web sites and extensions (FoxSaver, Fotofox) that rely on it to deliver the intended experience to their users.

From CyberNet News:

Why is this such a big deal? Extensions such as FoxSaver and Fotofox use that property for displaying images, and without it the extensions will appear to be flawed. FoxSaver even warns users on the site not to upgrade to Firefox 2.0.0.10 if they want the extension to work as expected.

2007 Blog & Firefox Year in Review are coming!

As I hinted earlier, I am in the process of putting together another Firefox Year in Review as well as The Blog Year in Review. Just like last year, The Firefox Year In Review will be released on Christmas (December 25th) Day.  However, last year I posted the Blog Year in Review over a couple days.  This year I will be publishing these articles throughout the month of December.  The first post should be out sometime this weekend and the final post on New Years Day.  Each Blog Year in Review post will have a link (where applicable) to the prior and next month’s post as well as a link to an ‘index’ post.  The Firefox Year in Review along with the Blog Year in Review ‘index’ posts will be added to the Popular Posts page.

Like I Said…

As am I preparing to start the Firefox Year in Review along with the Blog Year in Review posts, I came across an interesting prediction I made in my Open-Source Predictions For 2007 post:

(Ryan Wagner, CyberNet News) “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.

Well, Mozilla didn’t stop supporting Windows XP.  However on October 19th after an unsuccessful upgrade attempt on my XP system, I ended up purchasing a new PC which had Vista pre-installed.

Firefox 2.0.0.10 Released

Firefox 2.0.0.10 was released on Monday, November 26th.  The following HIGH (Vulnerability can be used to gather sensitive data from sites in other windows or inject data or code into those sites, requiring no more than normal browsing actions.) impact security issues were fixed in this build:

• MFSA 2007-39 Referer-spoofing via window.location race condition
• MFSA 2007-38 Memory corruption vulnerabilities (rv:1.8.1.10)
• MFSA 2007-37 jar: URI scheme XSS hazard

Users should get automatic notification of the new version within the next 48-hours. Alternatively users can upgrade sooner by either going to the Help Menu and selecting Check For Updates…or downloading Firefox 2.0.0.10 directly via getfirefox.com

Sources:

• Known Vulnerabilities in Mozilla Products (Fx 2.0.0.10)
• Firefox 2 Release Notes (Fx 2.0.0.10)

Weekly Update 2007-11-26

Reminder: Due to Day Light Savings time ending and my work schedule, I am not be able to get the meeting notes posted until the following Tuesday.

---

Here’s an overview of this week’s Update Meeting:

• Fx 2.0.0.10 :
  • Target Ship Date: Monday - November 26th
    • Fixes the jar: protocol bugs
• Fx3.0 m9/b1 - Released: Tuesday, November 20th
• Fx 3.0/Gecko 1.9 Beta 2-
  • Code Freeze: December 7th
    • This date will make or break planned Beta 2 release by the end of the year
  • Places Organizer updates landed, history/tags/unfiled bookmarks
  • Endcaps are dead, long live minimal UI
  • Gathering feedback from B1
  • Autocomplete work upcoming (Seth) to aid discoverability/usefulness of the awesomebar
  • As of this meeting 429K downloads and we had around ~100k active users
  • Many positive reviews out there on the net
  • Survey from chip magazine indicates a number of people interested in switching to Firefox3: http://forum.chip.de/umfrage-woche/setzt-firefox-3-a-975171.html
• Lightning/Sunbird (Calendar Project) -No Report
• TBird 1.5.0.14 - Next planned possible release but no further details at this time
• TBird 2.0.0.9 - Released on November 14th
• TBird 2.0.0.10 -Dveditz and Abillings are examining issues but we do not expect to do a Thunderbird 2.0.0.10 at this point.
• TBird 3 -No Report

Complete Meeting Notes

Update: Windows Vista Update

I have updated the Windows Vista Update entry from a couple days ago. Apparently I had Published the article instead of Saving, which would explain why I wasn’t finding it in my drafts.

Windows Vista Update

I’ve been using Windows Vista for about a month or so now. I ended up removing Norton on day one choosing to using Avast! and Zone Alarm. I been wanting to try out the new Comodo Firewall which recently became Vista compatible, however I have heard when used with Avast has a very adverse affect on Windows startup time.

Up until the other day everything had been running fairly smoothly. I do have this occasional issue with Thunderbird and/or Firefox where I go run the application and it won’t run. Click again and either it still does nothing or I get a prompt saying it is already running. I do a CTRL+ALT+DELETE to bring up the task manager and go into Processes. Sometimes there is only one, other times there are multiple processes of Firefox and/or Thunderbird. I will try to end process and I am able to end all but one processes of Firefox and/or Thunderbird. At least with XP it would end all the processes. The only option I left with is to shut-down and restart Windows. That usually fixes that and only I have to do that may be once every couple weeks or so.

I was dealing with this issue the other morning, which my first startup after installing a rather large update when I shut down the day prior. So while I am trying to get Thunderbird to run I get a pop-up saying Windows needs to update (or had problems with) the NVIDA driver for my video card. WTF!? This system is about a month old, so I shouldn’t haven’t to update the driver again. Since I was still fighting with Thunderbird I told Windows I would do this later. I ended up rebooting again and once more Windows Vista prompted me about the video card driver. I must have clicked on the ‘Don’t Ask Me Again’ options as suddenly I found myself running 800×600 instead of my usual 1440×900. On the positive side, Thunderbird was now running and so was Firefox.

Okay, Thunderbird was working now. All I needed to do is go into control panel and simply reinstall the video card driver. I looked through the Device Manager and discovered this machine has a bunch of NVIDA adapters, but I couldn’t find the listing for the video card. I did find a couple entries with the yellow exclamation point. One of them being the Microsoft 6to4 adapter. When I tried to update the driver, Vista tells me I am running to current version, but it still has the yellow exclamation point. More on this in a bit, I did find an “Unknown Device”. So I had Windows Vista check for a driver for this “Unknown Device”. Turns out this was the driver needed for my video card and it was installed on-the-fly (no reboot needed). Once this was done I was able to readjust my resolution back to 1440×900 (again without reboot).

So back to the Microsoft 6to4 Adapter oddity. I did a search on Google for this 6to4 adapter and found out it has something to do with the new IPv6 format for IP addresses. Further searching turned up a Microsoft help article describing this error (although the error number was different, still the same error description) from back in March. Also discovered this error is common on HP machines as well. Anyway, Microsoft has a very simple resolution:

You can safely ignore this error message. This error message does not indicate a problem with the adapter. The adapter will continue to work correctly.

I suppose these are just part of those ‘quirks’ with Windows Vista. May be they will be fixed in the Service Pack 1 release (whenever that will be). Other than these minor issues, Windows Vista hasn’t been as bad as I was expecting. I have not had any issues with hardware not working and the only driver I had to install ‘from disk’ was for my cable modem. My monitor was already ‘Vista Compatible’ when I bought it back in May and the Printer/Scanner I picked up a few days prior to my XP system’s death work fine with Vista. Even bought a hard drive enclosure (turns an internal hard drive into an external via USB 2.0) and had not problems with it and Vista.

Happy Thanksgiving

Get a Mac: Don’t Give Up On Vista

A new type of Get a Mac ad appearing on sites such as CNet and Engadget.

Source CyberNet Forum