Archive for November, 2008

Microsoft/Yahoo: Microsoft in Talks Again?

Posted: Saturday, November 29, 2008 by El Guru in Blogs, Microsoft, Other, Yahoo

While nothing official has been released by Microsoft, The Times of London is reporting Microsoft Corp. has resumed its pursuit of Yahoo in a deal that could cost the Redmond-based company $20 billion, less than half of what it offered for the search site this summer.

Microsoft has put forward Jonathan Miller, ex-chairman and chief executive of AOL, and Ross Levinsohn, a former president of Fox Interactive Media, to lead a new management team at Yahoo under a 10-year agreement. Microsoft would have a two-year option to buy Yahoo outright for $20 billion. The report also says senior management at both companies “have agreed (to) the broad terms of a deal, but there is no guarantee that it will succeed.”

Now I am confused..Ballmer just got through saying about a week and half ago, “We are done with all acquisition discussions with Yahoo.” Again, no official response yet for Microsoft and there likely won’t be any until Monday.

News Source: The Microsoft Blog

BYIR: January, February & March 2008

Posted: Saturday, November 29, 2008 by El Guru in Firefox, Other, Year In Review

January 2008


With the start of 2008 came a handy “how-to” guide for moving Netscape 9 users to Firefox 2. Recall, AOL had announced they would discontinue support for Netscape 9 (based off of Firefox 2) in February 2008.

While the below “We Remove Vista…” photo was taken back in October 2007 at A&D Computer in Milford, NH it appeared in Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog (now The Microsoft Blog) in late January.

Included in January were three Add-Ons Reviews.

  • Organize Search Engines, allowed Firefox users with lots of search engines a better management system to keep their search engines organized. Think of the Manage Bookmarks functionality, except for search engines. 
  • Tab Effect, was a bit of a ‘novelty’ extension that I didn’t keep loaded for very long.
  • URL Link, a powerful and highly customizable add-on which allows you to add options to the context (right-click) menu for handling URL links

January 22, 2008 marked Ten Years of Mozilla, a celebration that would last most of the year.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (January 22, 1998 ) — Netscape Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: NSCP) today announced bold plans to make the source code for the next generation of its highly popular Netscape Communicator client software available for free licensing on the Internet. The company plans to post the source code beginning with the first Netscape Communicator 5.0 developer release, expected by the end of the first quarter of 1998.


Also in Mozilla news, John Lily was announced as New Mozilla Corp CEO succeeding Mitchell Baker. Mitchell would remain as Mozilla Foundation’s Chairman.


2008 also brought some much needed good news about Thunderbird. David Ascher head of MaiCo (now Mozilla Messaging) had posted an extensive article Thoughts on Thunderbird’s Evolution on his blog. At the end of January came Thunderbird 3 Plans for 2008. The plan included both purposed features and time lines.

Due to the increasing popularity of the Get a Mac ads we added a Get a Mac Category. Released during the NFL playoffs and in response to a Wall Street Journal report, Get a Mac: Referee. Also this month was a the slightly annoying Get a Mac: Time Machine ad.

A great photo of Canadian Firefoxen by Rick MacWilliam/Edmonton Journal:

(more…)

Release Recap: November Week 4

Posted: Saturday, November 29, 2008 by El Guru in 2, 3 (Shredder), Firefox, Fx 2.0, Fx 3.0, Fx 3.5, Thunderbird

Just Released

  • No new release this coming week

Schedule this Coming Week

  • MU Firefox 2.0.0.18 >> Firefox 3.0.4 – December 2nd

Future Release

  • AMO 4.0.4 – December 2008
  • Firefox 2.0.0.19 – December 16th *FINAL UPDATE*
  • Firefox 3.0.5 –  December 16th
  • Firefox 3.1b2 – TBA
  • Shredder (Thunderbird) 3b1 – TBA
  • Thunderbird 2.0.0.20 – January 2009

2008 Blog Year In Review

Posted: Saturday, November 29, 2008 by El Guru in Blog News, Other, Year In Review

2008 Blog Year in Review (BYIR)


A Message From The Guru

Posted: Thursday, November 27, 2008 by El Guru in Blog News, Firefox, Other, Year In Review

First off, a Happy Thanksgiving from The Guru.

This long weekend also marks the start of The Blog Year in Review 2008. Going to do this a little different this year as for formatting. Instead of doing 1-month per post as in the past, I am going to try and do 3-months per post. Here is a tentative release schedule (much like that of Firefox 2, 3 and 3.1 or that of any Mozilla project it is subject to change)…

  • January, February and March – November 30th
  • April, May and June – December 13th
  • July, August and September – December 27th
  • October, November and December – January 1st

NEW! Fx 3.1 Logos

Posted: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 by El Guru in Firefox, Fx 3.5, Mozilla News

New Firefox 3.1 logos have been made available by the Mozilla Marketing team.

News Source: Mozilla Developers News

Fx 3.1b2 coming early December

Posted: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 by El Guru in Firefox, Fx 3.5, Mozilla News

On Tuesday, November 25th, the build for Firefox 3.1b2 was handed off to QA for testing. Normally this process takes about 7-days for QA to sign-off on the builds. However, because of the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday, the sign-off is not expect to happen until December 5th. So it looks as if we will have to wait a couple more weeks before Beta 2 is released. Good news is Mozilla is still target the final Firefox 3.1 release for 1st quarter 2009.

Major Update Fx 2.0.0.18 to 3.0.4 Coming

Posted: Monday, November 24, 2008 by El Guru in Firefox, Fx 2.0, Fx 3.0, Mozilla News

On Wednesday, December 3rd Tuesday, December 2nd, Mozilla is going to give Firefox 2.0.0.18 users another opportunity to move over to the new Firefox 3.0.4 via the Major Update. This update will not work with releases prior to 2.0.0.18, users will need to upgrade to the 2.0.0.18 release in order to get offered the Major Update.

As a reminder with the expected release of Firefox 2.0.0.19 on December 16th, this will be the end of support and updates for Firefox 2.0.0.X product. Users are urged to upgrade (if their systems meet the requirements) to Firefox 3. There is expected to be one more Major Update, Firefox 2.0.0.19 to 3.0.5 likely in January 2009.

ADDONS.MOZILLA.ORG (AMO)

AMO 4.0.3 – Status: Release November 17th

AMO 4.0.4 – Status: In Process

FIREFOX/GECKO

Fx 2.0.0.18 -> 3.0.4 Major Update – Status: Release to Beta

  • QA
    • Tested major update for Firefox 2.0.0.18->3.0.4 [abillings, juanb]
  • Schedule (Estimated)

    • Code freeze: ?
    • QA starts: ?
    • Builds start: ?
    • Release to beta channel: November 24th
    • Final Release: December 3
Fx 2.0.0.19 & Fx 3.0.5/Gecko 1.8.1.19 & 1.9.0.5 -Status: Code Freeze

  • Code frozen except one further patch
  • Localization freeze for 3.0.5 is November 28 at 11:59pm PST
  • Aiming for release on December 16
  • End of life for Firefox 2.0.0.x
  • Schedule (Estimated):

    • Tree opens: November 3
    • Code freeze: November 17 11:59pm
    • QA starts: November 18
    • Thanksgiving holiday: November 27 & 28
    • Builds start: December 1
    • Release to beta channel: December 9
    • Final Release: December 16

Fx 3.0.6 – Status: Tree Opening Pending

  • Schedule (Estimated)
    • Tree opens: December 1
    • Code freeze: TBA
    • QA starts: TBA
    • Builds start: TBA
    • Release to beta channel: TBA
    • Final Release: January 2009

Fx 3.1b2 (Shiretoko)/Gecko 1.9.1b2 – Status: Pending Release

  • QA
    • Beta 2 is not yet frozen. Test Plan is available.
    • Helped the planning team figure out the right plan for the next couple milestones [tchung, timr]
    • Feature testing:
      • Worker Threads: Spent time working on the DOM Worker Threads MozMill tests. It turns out that they decided not to change the spec at all [admc]
      • Got Tomcat up and running the JavaScript tests for mozilla-central and tracemonkey. [bc]
      • Updated the audio/video test plan to reflect the existing tests and the tests that are already written [ctalbert]
      • CSS: Verified that the new approach in bug 459148 will allow us to actually reftest border-radius properly. Started refactoring those tests accordingly. [ctalbert]
      • Element traversal and media query tests: Made progress on these. Working on how to automate these. ~50 additional test cases added to Media Queries. ~10 additional test cases for Media Queries. [jmaher, ctalbert]
      • HTML 5 Drag and Drop: Added 10 more test cases [jmaher]
      • Overall Firefox 3.1 test development status:
        • Testplan completion: 88%
        • Testcases planned: 921
        • Testcase competion: 69%
  • Schedule
    • String freeze: October 30th @ 11:59 PM PDT
    • Code freeze: November 4th @ 11:59 PM PDT
    • Builds start: November 10th
    • QA starts: TBA
    • Release to beta channel: November 24th
    • Final Release: December 2008

SUNBIRD/LIGHTNING

No Report

THUNDERBIRD

TBird 2.0.0.18 – Released: November 19th
TBird 2.0.0.20 -Status: Tree Opening Pending

  • Schedule (Estimated)
    • Tree opens: December 1
    • Code freeze: TBA
    • QA starts: TBA
    • Builds start: TBA
    • Release to beta channel: TBA
    • Final Release: January 2009

TBird 3.0b1 (Shredder) – Status: Pending Code Freeze

  • No Report
  • Schedule

    • String Freeze: November 14th @ 23:59 Pacific.
    • Code freeze: November 25th @ 23:59 Pacific.
    • Builds start: TBD
    • QA starts: TBD
    • Release to beta channel: TBD
    • Final Release: December 2008

Complete Meeting Notes

Release Recap November Week 3

Posted: Saturday, November 22, 2008 by El Guru in 2, 3 (Shredder), Firefox, Fx 2.0, Fx 3.0, Fx 3.5, Thunderbird

Just Released

  • Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 – November 19th

Schedule this Coming Week

  • MU Firefox 2.0.0.18 >> Firefox 3.0.4 – No Earlier than November 24th
  • Firefox 3.1b2 – TBA

Future Release

  • AMO 4.0.4 – December 2008
  • Firefox 2.0.0.19 – December 16th *FINAL UPDATE*
  • Firefox 3.0.5 –  December 16th
  • Shredder (Thunderbird) 3b1 – TBA