rebron.org

August 22, 2005

rise of the XUL applications

Yahoo's hiring XUL app developers as they should.

Google has some XUL developers on their payroll.
So does Amazon.com and there are several still at AOL/Netscape.
There are over 600 Firefox and Thunderbird extensions.

And, I've seen several internal XUL based applications...in production environments except I can't tell you where.

There's SimoHealth as a XUL based health management software.
There's the Amazon XUL browser built by an individual.

And let's not forget that Mozilla Suite (Netscape 7.x), n|Vu, Sunbird, Firefox, and Thunderbird are all XUL based applications.

What XUL apps would I like to see:
- an AIM/Yhoo/MSN/Jabber chat client
- a simple n|VU like editor for blog posting and maybe simpler documents
- XUL based media player
- a few more things...

Posted by rebron at 01:47 PM | Comments (2)

Google Desktop 2.0 thoughts

Here's the Google Desktop 2.0 client. It's along the lines of Konfabulator and Mac OS X widgets. The sidebar needs work. It's not a good form factor (I hate that term), and the way it was done (several blocks of content) was something we punted on when deciding what the UI was going to be for Netscape 6 way back when.

The best "sidebar" are the AIM/Yahoo/MSN clients. A buddy list is something you want persistent and maybe some content but not lots of mini blocks of content.

I'm wondering if the "sidebar" or Google Desktop expands into Skyline. I'll just stop there. Those who know Skyline know what I'm talking about. It also could morph into Marlon/Joe's task and contact oriented sidebar/messaging app. That was a pretty good idea too.

Posted by rebron at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)

August 18, 2005

trust (or no lipstick) marketing

I'm always having to describe SpreadFirefox. Other than it's a big 'ol experiment that's driven awareness, usage of Firefox/Mozilla products, it's also several concepts:
- open source marketing
- community marketing
- and trust marketing

We're actually defining all these as we go. I'm not aware of too many open source/community marketing projects out there. Trust and marketing don't often go hand in hand. So I think we're defining trust marketing too.

There's only been two places I've seen talk of trust marketing, this one article trying rename permission marketing to trust marketing and Steve Rubel.

"Permission marketing" apparently is all about opt-outs and opt-ins. Steve's brief mention of trust marketing is around citizen journalism and bloggers, and trusting your social circle which is a limited definition.

Well, trust marketing is all about telling the truth (easy enough) and being very open. It's not overpromising, it's not saying something is the best thing in the world, it's not saying we've solved the problem when we haven't, it's about being matter-of-fact, it's about being up front with problems, it's about going above and beyond when you mess up (over communicating). No one wants to be tricked into things.

Anyone notice that the prices at the Mozilla Store aren't $5.99, $14.99, or $19.99. The prices are like $6.00, $14.00, $17.00. So random and so refreshing. BTW, Windows XP SP2 is $189.99. So not only are you getting price gouged, you're getting tricked while you're at it. It's $200 for Win XP SP2, and what's the $50 difference between Home and Pro again.

The other piece of trust marketing is the word of mouth recommendation. It's much better to hear about something from your family, friend or co-worker then some spokesperson, analyst, etc. Trust marketing is also about helping that along, making sure folks are able to say great things about your product but also that people are equipped to know what to say when they do make that recommendation. So it's tell your friends and co-workers about Firefox, here's a blog space where you can do it, add this button to your site, get it installed on your family's computer, etc, and also some of the things you should point out are the tabbed browsing, popup block features, the security benefits, your favorite features, etc.

So that's trust marketing. Telling the truth about your products (no lipstick), being good to people, giving people an opportunity to recommend your product, and helping people come up with what to say when they do want to recommend your product.

Posted by rebron at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)

Gateway recommends Ubuntu

You know you're in trouble when you have to do marketing tricks like Gateway recommends Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional. What else could Gateway (or Dell|HP) recommend? Gateway recommends Ubuntu Linux? Linux folks need to come up with a good name that'll stick. But anyhow, MSFT wasn't the only one that used this marketing tactic.

I wasn't around then but I think it was Mike Homer who started the "Best Viewed in Netscape" campaign. It was a defensive marketing tactic and when you're on the defensive, you're not in a good position.

We don't recommend that folks do "best viewed in Firefox". However, we do recommend specifying system requirements, and it's ok to say you've tested/certified your web site or application to work in Firefox.

So when you see Gateway|Dell|HP "recommending" MSFT, give it some time because that recommendation is only there because of some silly marketing line item in some long contract.

Posted by rebron at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

August 17, 2005

shaver on the case for identity 2.0

If someone can help solve identity on the Web, it'll be shaver. I had the fortune of working on UREG for Netscape as well as Screen Name Service for AOL. Screen Name Service is still used today by AOL (and could be more performant). Identity (authentication/registration) is a pain in the ass problem so it'll be interesting to see how identity 2.0 progresses.

Some observations:
- Splitting "profile" information from identity. Identity 2.0 can't have "profile" information nonsense, so establishing identity has to have the most minimal information possible just to establish identity none of this country of origin, male/female, age stuff. "Sharing" of profile information among identity partners is also a big hairy ball of a mess, so need to stay away from that.
- Central gateway, e.g. passport model doesn't work.
- Identity 2.0 can't be a password manager/wallet.
- There is a trust relationship that needs to be established e.g. iChat's @mac.com and @aol.com among those playing the game.
- A reset/migration of identity, is there something other than email that we can use.
- Political bs. The big players yhoo, msft, aol already have a namespace based on email. Google is building up a namespace. Small fry sites really have no chance if they're requiring people to sign-up yet again for some service. Wonder why AOL, MSFT, YHOO have not opened up instant messaging? It's not because they can't, they don't want to make a competitor's identity more powerful than their own (especially when identity is a billing relationship).
- "Trusted client" is going to sneak it's way back in to the mix (as if identity 2.0 wasn't bad enough).

So what's the identity problem again?
- Too many usernames and passwords and the security of it all.
- Single sign-on (the holy grail of authentication, if only we could all just get along).
- Spoofing/scams go away.

The net of this is, we can be in a much better place than where we are today with identity. Right now, it's just a complete mess. Maybe everyone should just install the bugmenot extension and call it a day.

Posted by rebron at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2005

lipstick on a pig

Marty Cagan wrote this article called "Lipstick on a Pig" about product management and putting, well, lipstick on a pig (in other words dressing up a bad product). Coincidentally, the IE team came out with their new logo.

The logo is ok. I think the true test of the logo is if you can slap it on a t-shirt and see if anyone buys it. You think we'll see an IE 7 shirt for sale anytime soon? Yeah, not so much.

Posted by rebron at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

August 14, 2005

Linux World Expo wrap-up

Linux World Expo was last week, August 8-11. We had a Mozilla booth and shaver keynoted on the 10th. chofmann also attended the Linux in Government day and Red Hat via blord announced the crypto stuff that was on tap for Firefox/Thunderbird (FIPS 140 re-certification, smart card features, FIPS 201).

Otherwise, not very happy with Linux World Expo. All the .org were up on the second floor away from the sales "droids" as dmose politely called them on the main floor. If the highlight was candy bar give aways from the Red Hat booth...yeah.

Two things I saw that were neat were: Scalix and Zimbra. Both were open source solutions for Groupware that were "ajaxed". Zimbra looked more interesting. Like I said, the next thing coming out of msft, twx, goog, or yhoo is going to be an "ajaxed" calendar even though no one is still using online calendars.

The only other thing I saw that was interesting wasn't related at all to Linux World Expo but was last Thursday after LWE over at OSAF, a Wikipedia talk given by Jimmy Wales. I'll talk about that in the next post.

Posted by rebron at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2005

CCK 0.2 for Deer Park

mkaply is a stud. He's got CCK 0.2 out for Deer Park Alpha 2 aka Firefox 1.5. If you're a customizer/deployer, download it and give feedback to mkaply: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/cck/firefox/

Posted by rebron at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)

Festa's greatest hits

From the grapevine, today is Paul Festa's last day at c|Net. He's still going to be freelancing so not sure if he's going to write about Mozilla anymore. But anyhow, it sure was interesting (my bail out word).

Paul's had some good/bad/ugly/on the mark stories for us over the years. In a very strange way, he is part of the Mozilla family who sometimes you wished lived on the other side of the globe and just sent you money on your birthday and Christmas.

Good luck to you!

Posted by rebron at 09:17 PM | Comments (0)

August 09, 2005

experiencing difficulties @Library of Congress

Oh boy. I know the Library of Congress did not just write this:

"Today's notice seeks information as to whether persons filing the electronic-only preregistration form prescribed by the Copyright Office will experience difficulties if it is necessary to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser in order to preregister a work."

Get ready for some letters. Who is doing this web site? Do they not read the news and follow what's going on in the TechWorld?

Posted by rebron at 06:56 AM | Comments (0)

thoughts on Yahoo!360

ouch. I don't know about all this free advice. Anyhow, Yahoo!360 which is known internally at Yahoo! as an experiment is doomed from the beginning. No matter how well it may do, it won't be able to get *everybody* because of the network effect, stuck like Yahoo!Messenger. That's aside from the fact that getting started on it is like getting started on the "big dig" with a little itty bitty shovel.

Make hosting something like rebron.org easy. Make me host my site at Yahoo, make it easy for me to upload files and change my stylesheets, make it easy for me to add yahoo services as well as other services. That's it. You get your money (advertising) back from the links off of my site. You may even be able to get me to integrate your ad sense type product or make me pay for hosting my stuff.

We'll see how it goes. It seems that Y!360 is more of a repository of Yahoo services which gets filled up when prompted by friends/others to do stuff on that service. They did get the Yahoo!Messenger integration concept right. I wish it was just a better service.

Why don't you guys talk to Anil or the WordPress guys and your own guys (geocities, domain/small business people) and come up with something better. It's annoying.

Posted by rebron at 12:13 AM | Comments (0)

"ajaxing" calendar

Well, clearly an "ajax" (gag) calendar is going to be the next thing out of either Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL, or some start up.

Let's give it two more months. I'm still waiting on Yahoo!Mail's new update of it's service which will be based on Oddpost. I told him what they need to do is give users IMAP service over Thunderbird. If they worked HTML ads into Thunderbird (by dispalying HTML mail only) there wouldn't be any issues in terms of loss of advertising dollars.

Posted by rebron at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

August 08, 2005

next step in blogging

This one is easy, the next step in blogging is aggregation just like I've told everyone I've come across. So no surprise to see, filter.msn.com which is essentially planet.mozilla.org or the aggregation one at mozillazine.

To do something like MSN Filter is like an instant portal, not very hard to do and the incentive on the blogger side is there if they're getting paid via advertising. The things is, in order for this aggregation to succeed, it needs to happen at a local level. Aggregation at a high level still requires top content providers so if you want Tech News you should be pulling in Walt Mossberg, Om Malik, David Pogue, etc and not some random blogger.

Some reporters and news agencies are really afraid of what's happening in the blog space. If they took the time to understand it and get blogging incorporated into the system it would work great. Let's get Ray Ratto (from SF Chronicle) blogging about Bay Area sports and have it syndicated in even more places then where he has it today.

Anyhow, this would be a great strategy for AOL, nscp.com, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo as they're in the process of thinking up what the next portal looks like.

Posted by rebron at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2005

OSCON 2005 Wrap-up

Just got back home from OSCON 2005 in Portland, Oregon which happened Aug 1-5th.

You can see what other people are saying about it in the "blogosphere" (cue scary music). I was mostly in the booth as the pet peeve bug collector but most people already used Firefox/Thunderbird so it was a procession of thank you's and we sold out of Firefox polos and hats.

Here's my bullet point wrap up:
- Howtoons.org is very cool. Worthy of a visit.
- Asa throws like a girl but would be a mean ultimate frisbee player. Great job on the keynote.
- Fine! mcolvig kicked my ass at the Vineman. shaver, dmose, asa shut it!
- Mitchell was impressive as always, especially with her keynote/interview.
- I had already Met the Flockers. Too bad I wasn't invited to the party, or given a shirt, or asked to provide feedback on their product (it's not like I have experience in this stuff or anything), but that's cool.
- We gave a Firefox polo shirt to one of the hotel receptionists who was a big fan of Mozilla/Firefox. shaver, shrep, mitchell all watched as I gave it to him. Of course his eyes lit up.
- Portland's Max Rail system rocks.
- Next year, we're going to have a Mozilla track at OSCON, at least that's what I'm pushing for.
- Everyone was asking about a Mozilla Developer Day. Don't have the answer for that. Should've been next week after Linux World Expo. Maybe piggyback Web 2.0 conference.
- Scott Kveton, Mike Morgan and OSL sure do know how to host and I mean parties (and I hear barbecues too).

Posted by rebron at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

August 04, 2005

my MoCo statement

So by pinging me, not going to get anything more then what's located here: http://www.mozilla.org/reorganization/

What changes:
- email addresses, joy, so eventually rebron AT mozilla.com? (which will likely redirect to my meer.net account, double joy.)
- better clarity on product versus project, products are marketed by mozilla.com, projects are developed at mozilla.org
- no more "i don't know if we can do this, we're a nonprofit". It will be replaced by, "i don't know if we can/should do this."

And the big question:
- Are you going to get fat rims for the BMW X3 (which was largely funded by wife/Farella Braun & Martel and not MoFo, just so you know)? The answer would be no.

Posted by rebron at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

August 02, 2005

@OSCON 2005

I'll be at OSCON in Portland, Oregon from Tuesday morning to Friday afternoon. Should be a fun one.

Posted by rebron at 05:46 AM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2005

The P3P Story

P3P not PSP. P3P has something to do with privacy policies as xml/client readable documents, in other words IE was supposed to detect a web site's privacy policy and show some obscure icon and block cookies if a web site didn't provide a p3p document or if the privacy policy said the wrong thing. Or something like that. Microsoft was trying to protect the user's privacy and they marketed the heck out of it.

In any case, IE 6 had P3P support if I remember right, and everyone at the time was jumping up and down, oh we got to get an audit of our damn cookies and find out what they all do and put this privacy policy together so that IE 6 doesn't display that stupid icon and break our web site. It was fun. It sure wasted a lot of folks time I don't know about at other web sites.

But boy, MSFT sure solved those privacy issues with that implementation. If it weren't for that privacy icon, I don't know what I'd do. There have been so many times I've not gone to a web site because that privacy icon showed up...Ok, I'll stop.

Privacy in 2000-2001 was the issue du jour. Phishing is the issue today. More thoughts on phishing soon because it's a lot more complicated than people think.

Posted by rebron at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2005

Jon's got it, Yahoo!Toolbar 1.0 for Firefox

Granrose gets it. I sure hope that every product manager at Yahoo is paying attention to Jon.

If you're an Internet/Web company, it's about the browser. It always has been, it always will be so you best pay attention to what's happening in the browser world. I'm amazed by the number of so-called product managers at *web* companies who don't understand that or don't understand the basics of the Web.

When you build a web site, web application, toolbar etc, it's a checklist:

- am I generating income
- is it a good user experience
- is it cross-platform, localizable, accessible
- is it performant, speed, uptime
- will it make a difference
- what's the timing

Jon and team nailed it and they shipped! Congrats.
What's next? (jon knows what next)

Posted by rebron at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

Phishing Detection Feature in IE 7

So apparently IE 7 will have or has a Phishing Filter. MSFT is going to promote it pretty heavily no doubt.

The breakdown is:
- They're likely getting the technology from Whole Security and the Phish Report Network.
- There is some sort of list for "legitimate" sites. Apparently, it's a quasi-default on feature. When you first get to a site that's not on "the list", MSFT warns you and says do you want to turn on the Phishing Filter feature.
- It's not clear whether IE 7 checks against a list that's stored on the client side that gets updated on a regular basis (what's the frequence), or if it checks against a list that's hosted server-side. Probably the former.
- Who is on that list of sites and how is it managed? Also, if it's list based, isn't this feature obsolete. You maybe able to protect some people, but the first few people will get in trouble because they never got the up to date list.
- What's the performance hit on the browser having to check against a list of "legit" sites?

I'm sure they've thought through all these issues.

Posted by rebron at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)

July 26, 2005

75 million downloads of Firefox

Another milestone, 75 million downloads of Firefox, yea.

FAQ
Q: Why are you counting downloads?
A: Because it's a metric, something we can measure. There are other metrics, downloads are one of them. Market share is another, and we're around 7-11% market share at some top sites.

Q: What's included in the download numbers?
A: We don't count updates through the the update mechanism for total downloads. We do recognize that some people will download the product multiple times or upgrade through the download links on mozilla.org. But, some folks also install Firefox on multiple machines personal, work and parent's computer and there are also corporate or school-wide deployments that are happening. Some also get Firefox on CD or other distribution method.

Q: When are you going to reach 100 million downloads?
A: Soon, hopefully.

Posted by rebron at 11:35 AM | Comments (0)

Beta Plaxo Extension for Thunderbird

Cool. A beta Plaxo extension for Thunderbird.

Fine. I knew about this press release and this extension a while back. I'll stop pretending this is news to me. What was funny though was that Mark Jen emailed me. I was like, don't I know you? Oh, that's right the infamous MSFT/Google blogger. That was pretty neat.

Posted by rebron at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2005

konfabulator, mozilla connection

Congrats Arlo! Yahoo made a great acquisition by getting Konfabulator. What most people don't know is that Konfabulator uses Mozilla's JavaScript engine, SpiderMonkey.

Just so people know because there's 1000's of people using Bugzilla (like Yahoo and NetFlix) and Mozilla doesn't get credit for that either.

Posted by rebron at 06:20 PM | Comments (0)

Mo' MiniMozilla Screenshots

**Updated**
Minimo .007 released see DougT's blog.

Google.com, notice the progress meter.

Yes, Google Maps works in MiniMo. That would be Slashdot in another tab in the background.

A Google satellite view of my friend's house.

But can you view Slashdot...(yes you can!)

Posted by rebron at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2005

Firefox's market share higher than expected?

I can make up juicy headlines too. Tom's Hardware has an article called: Automated scripts inflating IE's market share? Who's to say? Everyone has their own methodology.

I've been tracking browser stats since 1999 and have seen browser stats since 1995, stats that Netscape collected way back when.

The only real way to track browser market share is to get data from all sources and watch and track the data over time. You get the data from top sites directly from a summary report of their web server logs, and also third party reporting companies (Web Side Story, Omniture, Media Metrix, Xiti, etc). You ball park what the market share data is according to all data you gathered. I have Firefox pegged between 7 - 11% market share. We're the second most popular browser after IE 6 ~70%, and ahead of Safari and the AOL client at roughly 4% each.

Some people will give you market share based on page views, some per visitors, some with x or y stripped out, and others with x or y added. So everyone has their own methodology. I'm surprised web sites aren't more open about browser market share data, but it's actually really easy to get that information.

Want to know the secret? All you have to do is ask the right people. In one case, just about everyone advertises so all you really need to do is ask a salesperson from one of the top sites and they'll get that data for you in an instant.

In other words, I want my ads to be targeted to Firefox users, they're more active and are more likely to transact. What's the percentage of Firefox users on your site? Great, thanks for the info. Pretty easy.

Posted by rebron at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)

working the fast break

I'm worried that the Microsoft FUD marketing machine is starting to gear up.

We're going to need a strong SpreadFirefox marketing push and of course help from all our friends to get beyond the little whispers.

Choice, innovation, better (and cooler) products, are what's important.
Time to get back on offense and play our game - fast and fun to watch.

Posted by rebron at 05:36 PM | Comments (0)

my friend Jim @Ask Jeeves

Jim and I were co-workers at Netscape. We started off in the analyst group and we went off into product management. There were some trends we discussed that we hit right on the mark and it was certainly a fun and crazy time.

The reason I like Ask Jeeves isn't because of "Ask Jeeves", it's because they've employed a brand strategy and they own a lot of properties that people don't understand they own - a couple include My Way (a very good My Yahoo type portal), Bloglines, Teoma, Excite, and now Ask Jeeves is a part of Interactive Corp. A diversified brand strategy is unique to Interactive Corp and something that AOL tried to do but couldn't execute.

For Ask Jeeves to succeed, they still need to focus on technology, focus on the end-user, and quit worrying about Google and Yahoo. Provide a great search experience for the diversified properties, create and enhance services, and drive re-circulation. That's pretty much it.

Posted by rebron at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2005

AOL Explorer vs. Netscape 8

AOL Explorer versus Netscape 8

If this were a movie, what would it be like? Attack of the Clones, Alien vs. Predator, Dumb and Dumber, the Titanic, Meet the Fockers, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

I'll stop, just *trying* to be funny. Congrats to AOL and Netscape for shipping products. Shipping product is hard work so congrats to both teams.

And Kerry Parkins you need to quit making stuff up.

Posted by rebron at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Hat, Google Polo

I'm also wearing eBay socks, AOL boxer shorts, Amazon sweat pants, and Microsoft flip flops.

More photos...

Posted by rebron at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2005

recent press stories

The last few times talking with the press has been explaining "the hack" at SpreadFirefox and the discussion with localizers re: 1.0.5/1.0.6.

For both, we were clearly going to get press (we've been at the point where everything we do gets in the press) it was a matter of making sure press had the story straight and weren't going too far with their stories --aka the sky is falling stories. Both of these stories didn't make it into main stream press (e.g. New York Times, etc) only tech and blog press.

I've got to say there were a few in the press who were giddy over the SpreadFirefox issue even though we went above and beyond what was required for disclosure for a site compromise. That was pretty disappointing but expected. This reporter was writing about a group that wants to make things better for the Internet, and there was a hack, and the reporter was giddy about writing a story? Overall, the articles stated the facts and our message to our community and not too much more.

The MozillaZine post of a bug report and localizer comments was interesting too. A reporter pointed out, you would never see any discussion like that in a corporate environment, it's so candid...it's refreshing. Not exactly those words but that same idea. I had to pause for a second. He was right. We work in a glass bowl, we're open, we're exposed, people are free to say what they want. and what reporters and others are seeing is a passionate (and vocal) group of people who want to see where this web is going to take us.

It's great.

Oh, and that person who was all giddy about writing on the SpreadFirefox hack, was a SpreadFirefox member and big fan of Firefox. Funny how things work.

Posted by rebron at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2005

Internet Explorer 7 analysis

Well here's what I think about IE 7.

# Internet Explorer 7.0 (MSIE) is a response to the popularity of Firefox, as well as a response to (end users and enterprise) customers and developers who are very unhappy with the security problems and nuisances that MSIE has not prevented.

# The focus of MSIE development had shifted to MSN Explorer, Longhorn and other products as there was no pressure or browser competition to warrant another Internet Explorer release. Some of the "premium" features of MSN Explorer, MSN toolbar, may make it's way into MSIE as well as MSFT's Anti-spyware products that they've recently acquired.

# MSIE 7.0 targeted at Windows XP SP2 users only, will not be provided to Windows 2000 users.

# MSIE 7.0 will be offered before Longhorn and targeted for a beta release in the Summer and likely a final release 3 to 5 months later or perhaps final release is Longhorn.

# MSIE 7.0 gives MSFT the ability to "break" sites and applications to an extent. Wholesale breakage won't be tolerated.

A few more thoughts:
# MSIE 7.0 will only work on Windows XP SP2, so MSFT is leaving much of their users out in the cold. Not to mention no solution for Mac OS X (and to a lesser degree Linux).

# New features? Wasn't this supposed to be a focus on security.

# Providing choice and innovation is key. Redundancy, meaning having two browsers on a machine and having web sites work in multiple browsers is a good thing. (this is what the web is all about)

What should be the top 5 key features in Internet Explorer 7.0:

* Some sort of security settings change, anti-phishing feature, anti-spyware bundling
* Tabbed browsing
* RSS integration
* International Doman Names Support (huge win for countries, and domain registrars)
* Best features are other people's add-ons like the Google or Yahoo Toolbar

Posted by rebron at 12:20 AM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2005

Thoughts about Extensions

So much for staying on the down low. This is the second time I've been MozillaZined. *sigh*

Extensions
- Extensions are very cool because folks can add their "pet" features on to the browser, to seemingly make their browser better. There are limits to what these extensions can do and it's interesting to see what people create. That's a fairly obvious statement but I said it anyway.

- Extensions are a great intro into hacking Firefox and Thunderbird. They're easy to create and can leverage the platform.

- For developers, I think it's a pretty fun playground. I hope that a big honor would be for their extension to be rolled into the core product similar to how tabbed browsing extensions became a core feature in Firefox and the Mozilla Suite.

- Security is paramount. At some point there maybe an evil extension out there. We'll need to watch out for that.

- As far as Mozilla Update, we're going to make this site much prettier and usable. What's good for Firefox (simple, stable, secure) is good for web site applications.

- Packaging. At some point, it would be convenient if we group or package extensions that make sense, like blogging extensions or "stop annoyances" extensions. We'll see that works.

- The majority of users will be happy with the default Firefox set up and there's plenty of customizations available without having to touch extensions, e.g. customizable toolbars, search plug-ins, bookmarks, live bookmarks, language prefs, text size, on and on. Extensions are for "power" users.

- I have to say Internet Explorer had us beat in the Netscape 6.x days on the extension front. There were all these toolbars and other customizations for Internet Explorer. It seems like Firefox has leap frogged IE on the extension front by a pretty wide margin. 600 extensions for Firefox is a lot.

Posted by rebron at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

baby got back(end)

Before I left AOL, someone told me, "all that matters is 'controlling' the front end. The backend doesn't matter."

Anyway, Mozilla does encourage browser customizations, and we have policies to allow that and of course it's open source so people can roll their own.

If a company wants to take Firefox, make a few customizations that's allowed under the policies, that's great. If companies want to take the Firefox source, rebrand it, add some stuff e.g. Netscape 8 or others then that's great too (just follow the policies). And it's cool when this type of customization/rebranding is for a niche market like a browser kiosk, or a browser targeted for kids.

Building a browser is pretty tough though. What exactly do you have to do when creating a browser:
- supporting the product, customer support, documentation, FAQs, etc.
- supporting developers, web site developers, extension developers
- securing the product, security releases, adding your own security features
- core product development
- legal mumbo jumbo

On top of that, you're supposed to be adding your "value add".

Then you multiply that by platform and by language/locale. That's a lot of stuff. That's enough to deter most companies from trying to roll their own browser. In other words, while it seems like developing a browser is a low barrier to entry, it's actually pretty high unless you're going after a niche market.

What's interesting about browsers though isn't the front end, it's the backend because the whole point of the browser is the web sites it can display. While the front end UI of a web browser is significant, the backend is what it's all about. If you're not doing anything on the backend you're really not a browser shop. Period.

Posted by rebron at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

Thoughts on Asa on Slashdot

If your butt gets Slashdotted that's great especially when it's commentary that's right on the mark, in Asa's case, "Linux Not Ready for the Desktop". Good stuff. We need to do more of this and provide commentary to lead this industry and move it forward.

For Mozilla people, if your butt gets Slashdotted and you didn't want to be, there are still things we can do to set the record straight if what you got Slashdotted for was taken out of context. It's very easy to get taken out of context, and spin statements every which way. There's a snow ball effect with Slashdot and so we want to get in front of the snow ball as fast as possible and melt it down. For the most part, everyone knows how to blog and communicate, but there's always that one comment that can be interpreted in several ways.

Linux thoughts...

There's more though re: Linux. Linux isn't ready for mobile devices either and lots of other situations but it is ready for many other situations.

It's funny to see all the commentary on Asa's blog regarding Dell and other OEMs trying to preserve MSFT's monopoly. Dell and others don't care about MSFT's monopoly they care about making money. It's going to take three things for the bigger OEMs to start distributing Linux: 1) a better Linux desktop, 2) a couple smaller OEM's to start distributing Linux, 3) and customers ASKING for Linux pre-installed on their machines.

A DellOS or GatewayOS based on Linux is not far off the mark folks.

Posted by rebron at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

My Yahoo's "Mover & Shaker" and friends

Steve linked to My Yahoo's new promotion.

What's interesting about it is that it's the classic Internet demographic:

- Young/Teen audience, aka Bethany
- Family oriented, aka Rebecca
- Mover & Shaker, aka Anthony
- Professional (there's a better name here), aka Douglas

Apple's done this type of marketing. AOL follows the same research, it's pretty much all the same across aboard. This is the Web target audience. You can segment it out further and go into cultures e.g. Latino and African American demographics. This segmentation would apply internationally as well.

So what's interesting is what you do with that info since everyone has this same information. Yahoo and others have opted to tell people, we know who you are and what you want to do. We know you so well we can pre-configure what we think you're going to want.

Could be applied to other things?

Posted by rebron at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2005

Firefox 1.0.5 is out!

Firefox 1.0.5 is available. Grab 'em.

Posted by rebron at 05:18 PM | Comments (0)

70 Million Downloads of Firefox

That's huge. 70 million downloads of Firefox in 9 months!

Posted by rebron at 09:07 AM | Comments (0)

Naked Broadband

DSL, Cable, other broadband providers should offer just a basic, no-nonsense, broadband service. Give me the connection info, give me a stable connection to the Web, give me a static IP, and that's it. Don't give me Webmail, don't give me other junk, or other "value-added" services. I don't want great customer service either, I shouldn't have to be calling customer service period, I don't care how great they are.

A fast connection and that's all. Is that too much to ask? Clearly it is.

Can you tell my home connection has been "intermittent", bad and slow?

Posted by rebron at 06:10 AM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2005

platypuses and XUL analogy?

Google engineer Justin says that XUL is like a platypus. Platypuses are pretty cool. They're one of the few mammals that lay eggs. They have venom in their ankles and they're semi-aquatic. They're found in Australia/Tasmania. I don't know if XUL is worthy of such a creature.

Oh yeah. Go get the Google Toolbar for Firefox plus extensions. My guess is that there maybe more to look forward to? Let's hope.

Posted by rebron at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2005

Powerpoint, IE screen shots, to me...No

I don't think anyone really reads my blog which is great! Allows me to rant about pet peeves and stuff. Current biggest pet peeve is getting a powerpoint deck that includes screen shots with Internet Explorer.

Umm...It's fine except that you're supposed to be trying to impress me and missing a simple detail like this is pretty bad.

Posted by rebron at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

July 01, 2005

EarthLink Toolbar for Firefox

Oh, what's this? An EarthLink Toolbar for Firefox.

Another ISP supporting Firefox. Very cool.

Posted by rebron at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2005

AOL Search extensions for Firefox

Well, it's about time: http://ftp.newaol.com/aolsearchfirefox/firefox.htm

I hear there's more coming.

So why am I giving AOL a hard time with my "it's about time comment". Because Firefox was shipped in November 9, 2004 it's now end of June. These search engine plug-ins are very easy to create, they're the same ones that were used in Netscape 6.x+. And how hard is it to build a page with these plug-ins? Exactly.

So from November 9 through June, someone must've been working on getting approval through some constipated process.

Posted by rebron at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

securing a computer, lessons from the 'hood?

There remains a digital divide because computers are still expensive and monthly access to the web is not yet "crucial" like cable tv and a telephone line. Many of the folks that aren't online don't care about online theft/computer fraud, they care about getting their house broken into and getting their computer stolen. Given that, can we learn something about securing a home that we can apply to securing a computer/software?

Some ways to secure a home:
- Move to a nicer neighborhood
- Install security doors and bars on the window
- Install motion detector lights
- Install an alarm
- Signage e.g. beware of dog, alarm sign
- Get a security review
- Install deadbolts
- Know your neighbors
- Install a fence/gates
- Get a dog, preferably a pit bull
(...and stay alert and look like you belong.)

That's about it. So does this translate into a securing a computer?
Not really, other than:
- Move to a nicer neighborhood translates into get a Mac
- Visit sites you trust
- Install firewall/antivirus security software
- Learn about the sites where you transact, that they're doing the right things
- Generally, stay alert

Securing a home versus a computer is really a whole different ball game. You don't fear for your life when thinking about securing your computer. It definitely puts things in perspective.

Posted by rebron at 07:18 AM | Comments (0)

June 24, 2005

RSS Support in IE 7

I could've told you that. It'll be interesting to see what the implementation is, whether they leverage how we've implemented live bookmarks or if they put in a full blown RSS reader in the browser.

Posted by rebron at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2005

why parental controls don't work

Parental controls will work for children from K-3rd grade. After 3rd grade, kids are too smart. They have at least 3 hours a day from 3pm - 6pm to play around with the computer at home. Kids are the home's IT department. I've met so many people who've said to me, "Firefox is great! My son/daughter installed it on my computer and he/she loves it."

Parental controls maybe should work like spyware. It should be hidden and it has to be able to frustrate the kid to no end. And even then, that's only going to work for a while.

The best thing to do with kids and computers is to work with your kid, keep computers in a central location of the house, and talk to 'em.

It's interesting to see that parental controls are being built into the operating system. That busts the bubble for companies like AOL, Symantec, and others who provide that service. Parental controls seem to be something that should be standardized though and the feature set should be fairly consistent.

Posted by rebron at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)

Linux on the desktop predictions

I think I make pretty good predictions so here are a few thoughts on Linux on the desktop.

It's June 2005 and roughly 1% of desktops are on Linux, 6% on Mac OS X, and some version of Windows make up the rest (over 20% are on Windows 2000 and Windows 98).

Linux desktop players to watch are: Red Hat/Fedora Core, Novell, Ubuntu and maybe Linspire and Lycoris. None of these are stellar distributions that make me want to switch from Mac OS X or Windows but the opportunity is certainly there (JUST MAKE THE DAMN THING EASY TO USE!).

Companies are piloting linux on the desktop and replacing workstations that may just need a browser and office application, today.

What's going to be interesting is whether or not we'll see a DellOS based on Linux or a GatewayOS (again based on Linux). It all depends on the revenue, can Dell make more money selling their own linux based OS than getting the kickbacks from Microsoft. Dell, HP, Gateway, others all need revenue outside of the initial hardware sale.

So it's looking like this:
- 2005-2007; Linux on desktop is piloted and evaluated
- 2008; Open Office and Linux are finally polished, more apps starting to appear, more support for Linux; games starting to appear
- 2009-2010; DellOS or some other OEM OS, linux on desktop will be about 20-25%

(this is would be the worse case scenario for linux on the desktop)

The reason why Linux is going to do well on the desktop is potential. People believe there is potential to be on the desktop and potential to make lots of money whether it licenses, support, or some other model. I don't know if developers see that anymore with Microsoft.

Posted by rebron at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

ubuntu linux

I installed ubuntu linux and it's ok. Linux on the desktop is still a good three years away. More in a future post.

Posted by rebron at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 20, 2005

Rushing features in Internet Explorer to market?

A couple things on Internet Explorer:

- It sounds like IE 7 is rushing its tabbed browser implementation
"we're retrofitting multiple tabs into a browser that wasn't designed that way" and "some toolbars won't work with IE7 and will need to be fixed." That doesn't sound good and the MSN toolbar with Tabbed browsing wasn't great or good.

- IE 7 won't support Windows 2000. There's a bunch of people on Windows 2000.

- "Low rights IE", which will be hard for end users to understand, will only be available in Longhorn.

- It sounds like there's going to be a lot of bundling going on with the IE 7 release, bundle anti-spyware, etc.

I'm wondering why IE doesn't focus on just security for IE 7. Why introduce new features at all when that could open up potential for security issues. The whole point of this release should be security a "cover your ass" release for not doing such a great job on securing IE 6 for the past couple of years.

At least it's on the product roadmap to make IE secure.

Posted by rebron at 03:52 PM | Comments (0)

additional development, job creation/justification

If you're a company leveraging open source products and development, and you have your own development resources, a good use of those development resources is to not screw around with those good open source products and add features that no one wants or can be incorporated back into that open source product.

A good use of that dev money could be used for further integration into other products or even feature development into that core open source product or extensions to that product.

It feels like it's job creation, job justification, or something else that folks feel like they need to build features (fork) on top of open source products rather than doing something else with that dev money. I'm *not* talking about extensions here.

I'm rambling and only a few people know exactly what I'm talking about. It's just a waste of money and energy that can be spent on other things. Let the open source product guys (at least Mozilla) figure out what's best for the user.

Posted by rebron at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)

Browser Stat Check

It seems like websites can safely stop "supporting" Netscape 1.x-6.x and support just Netscape 7.x and higher.

Seems like websites can evaluate "dropping support" for IE 5.5x and below.

This all depends on browser stats on your web server, but considering I poll some of the top web sites on the web today, I'm making general statements for the web sites as a whole.

IE 5.5x and below and Netscape 6.x and below are not being used (less than 2%) and they've been on a slow/steady decline; sites should be encouraging their users to upgrade to more up to date and capable browsers like Firefox 1.x, Safari, Netscape 8, IE 6.x, Opera 8, etc.

Older machines should check out Firefox too. Sys requirements to run Firefox aren't huge.

Posted by rebron at 02:20 PM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2005

The Measure of Success

What are the metrics that say mozilla.org/Mozilla Foundation is successful?

The mission of mozilla.org/Mozilla Foundation is clear: to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet. So how should this be measured? Is it Firefox and Thunderbird market share? Is it the number of people working on the project? Is it the number of projects at mozilla.org and related areas?

Another measure (that's hard to measure) is the success of companies and individuals. When companies roll out standards based web solutions, roll out Firefox and Thunderbird to save money and increase productivity, that's a huge success. When a company gives their employees a choice to use Firefox/Thunderbird, that's another huge success. When web developers/designers/consultants make money because they're upgrading web sites to be standards compliant, that's a success too.

Is this happening? Yes. Companies, governments, universities, schools are rolling out Firefox and Thunderbird and developing standards based intranet and internet sites/applications. Opportunities abound for web consultants, designers, application developers to help push standards based solutions further. The scenario is easy.

web consultant (to client): It's time to upgrade your web site/application.
client: Why?
web consultant: Your web site and application is old, a growing number of people are using alternative browsers such as Firefox, Opera, and Safari, and upgrading your web site to standards will make your website more accessible to these browsers and others, you'll get performance gains (likely achieve your goals, higher conversion etc.), and you'll be better prepared for future changes.
client: Well, that makes a lot of sense. When do we start?

That easy. So it's interesting to hear the naysayers say well, there are a bunch of sites that internal/external that use proprietary technology and don't work on Firefox (it's actually not that many sites). To me, that screams major opportunity to help that site/company move to a standards based technology.

Posted by rebron at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

June 17, 2005

Foxfire, err, Firefox

Foxfire is what many people say when they hear about this new browser called Firefox. I've heard it over and over again.

Now on the search results page for Google and Yahoo, Firefox isn't in the search results and I think it should be.

I'm guessing we could put foxfire in the meta tag for /products/firefox/index.html.

Hopefully that helps a bit.

Posted by rebron at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2005

Antiphishing in IE 7

This is just my guess on what's on tap for antiphishing in IE 7. Microsoft and a few others (eBay, Whole Security, Visa) announced an initiative a while back called the Phish Report Network. I'm not sure why that was done outside of the Anti-Phishing Working Group though I suspect the latter was more talk/theory than action. There's a lot of groups that are part of the anti-phishing working group and I also suspect folks want Mozilla Foundation as part of the group.

Anyhow, the IE 7 implementation should look like this:

- Someone will own some "bad"/phishing web site list. I'm sure there will be a nominal charge to have access to this list and update the list.
- Companies will be able to add to that list, like an eBay or Visa.
- Internet Explorer may have a cached copy of the list like a set of virus definitions and IE 7 will be updated as there are new phishing sites.
- Alternatively, MSFT may just host that list and every entry into the location bar will check against that list. This is somewhat like Related Links/What's Related, there was a similar mechanism used here.
- There will be some warning for these "bad"/phishing sites.

That should pretty much explain the implementation as I suspect it will be. There may be an advanced option to turn this feature off.

So what are the issues around this implementation:
- Who owns that list, who's on that list, and how was ownership determined?
- How do you add to that list? Sounds like it will be a manual process?
- If it's a list that's hosted server-side, what's the performance hit?
- How effective will that list be when it only takes a 1-2 hour window or less to do a successful phish attack?
- Doesn't prevent man-in-the-middle attacks (though you're pretty much hosed in this kind of attack).

The other option or in addition, IE 7 may include some "real-time phishing detection" in their browser. WholeSecurity has a product called Web Caller-ID. Now if it already worked, I'm sure this would already be shipping as a part of the MSN toolbar. The premise is that there's some sort of logic that analyzes a web page to detect whether or not it's a phish site. I'm curious as to how that logic would work as I'm sure there will be a bunch of false positives.

Maybe I just need to call 'em and find out.

There is something to the whole "trusted client" whether or not that's the computer or the browser/app level. There could be elements such as bookmarked sites and password managed sites that could add to the trust level of a web site you visit often. The big problem would be bookmarking a phish site which throws this model off.

Posted by rebron at 09:02 PM | Comments (0)

June 13, 2005

Book of NSCP, 2:7

Bldg 21

Netscape 7.1 was launched end of June 2003, only 2 years ago. It seemed like a long time ago. Towards the end, there seemed to be some mad rush to get NSCP 7.1 out the door, it's like there was no way we could slip. I didn't really no why until we got closer to the date. Apparently, there would be no browser team left to ship the product if we didn't ship on time. Sure enough, after Netscape 7.1 was shipped, the big CPD lay-off happened and it was yet another really bad day in the history of Netscape. The day of the lay-off we all hung out at the first floor of bldg 21. Most of the browser/Gecko team we're let go (about 50 people?). There was a bit of a party with food, I handed out the rest of the t-shirts, but strangely enough, there was this calm in the room. Not all was lost.

I remember being taken into a room, and the Mozilla Foundation was being described to me. I just couldn't help but smile.

Anyhow, at this point there was no Netscape browser team, no nothing. My team got disbanded and moved on to other projects and even I was moved on to work on AOL Download Center (?). Yeah. That's what I said.

Well, clearly my days were numbered. The browser was effectively dead (not on anyone's roadmap, no team to build another version, not even plans to do a proper end of life--end it if you're going to end it).

Somewhere around here I decided to train for an Ironman. I don't know what that was all about. Probably to get my mind off of the bs. When I'm frustrated, I work out and I needed to do a lot of working out. Ironman seemed to fit the bill.

I was still 1/5 product manager for Netscape at the time when finally I was laid off in December 2004. AOL likes to lay people off in December, it was the 3rd or 4th time it had done that since I was there --just awful, awful management at the top. On that layoff day, my carpool buddy and a bunch of my friends got laid off too, along with the remainder of the browser team that was left from the July lay off. I gave a phone call to the Netscape.com owners in Columbus.

Now, if you were following along, Netscape.com was being run out of Columbus, Ohio or the 'ol CompuServe group. They had been running it since December 2002 or so. Because of weird org chart stuff, I was under AOL products and not Netscape.com (website versus client development). So I called up the "business owner" for the Netscape browser, and said, "Yo, I'm out." Not exactly that but they were a little freaked out considering I was the only one left who knew what the hell was going on and knew anything about shipping a Netscape browser.

I should've taken the AOL package and gone to Yahoo or Google or someplace but something told me to stick around and I did. Instead of being laid off, I signed on to do something with the Netscape browser, (considering there was no team, there was only a few options left.)

Chapter 2 is almost over...(of course this is just my short summary version of the story, I bet you others have much more colorful commentary. No one really likes to talk about this period though, it wasn't very happy.)

Posted by rebron at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2005

Book of Netscape: Chapter 2 part 6 synopsis

Buffy, or I guess Buffy+. I think it was pav who came up with that codename for 7.01 and Buffy+ (after Buffy the Vampire Slayer) was "7.1". "Netscape" already lost meaning when AOL acquired it in '98. It used to mean innovation and web and cool. All the great images were made over because of all the different decision makers that came through: can you win with "cool", the green Mozilla lizard, the lighthouse, the nautical theme, the square N logo, constellation, all those great symbols done in by too many opinions.

What was the symbol/splash screen for Netscape 6? Exactly. Anyone remember the "blue buttons" on Netscape.com? Right. But how many people remember green Mozilla, the lighthouse, the big 'ol sailboat, What's New, What's Cool.

Back to the story. The plans or PRD for Buffy+ was largely written, a lot left over from Netscape 7.0 and I just listened to what the engineers wanted to do. It was some good stuff, junk mail filtering, clean up of the UI, find as you type, image resizing, IDN support, toolbar overflow, editor enhancements, and better popup blocking. We had a large team going into it and a core Gecko team backing us. It was a pretty major release with lots of goodness.

Buffy+ was considered "maintenance" though by management, essentially no new features (yeah). It was made even more clear when the app team was cut to 11 people total after a December layoff, that's 11 people for dev and qa for the whole app suite. No design, 1/2 a doc person, 1/2 a project manager, not much of anything. Mind you this was a product that had a *ton* of resources in the past. Essentially we were set up to fail and fail big time. But AOL mgmt was dealing with seasoned vets, an awesome engineering manager, and an awesome engineering crew (sspitzer and crew), so failure, not an option.

Buffy+ was supposed to be based on Mozilla 1.2 which then was supposed to be Mozilla 1.3, and then finally Mozilla 1.4. We were supposed to launch in March or April but we had a security release we had to deal with Netscape 7.0.2 (essentially Netscape's last security release). We needed to push back and Laura and chofmann were key to making Buffy+ based off of 1.4. The big sell job was we needed Buffy+ off of Mozilla 1.4 as the test vehicle for other things (I'll let you guess what those other things were). Somehow it worked.

We kept our heads down, focused on the work ahead of us of shipping a Netscape browser product. Not easy with all the bs around. (oh yeah, I sunsetted/EOLed Netscape Communicator 4.8 some where around here). We even got to do usability tests like we're supposed to be able to do.

An interesting decision point was made here. Remember, we were "maintenance". We evaluated Phoenix at the time to focus on that and ship that as the primary product. However, it wasn't ready, that wouldn't be construed as maintenance, we didn't have the resources, it didn't have a mail counterpart, and we just couldn't do it (but boy did we want to, because it was the right direction to go.) In other words, we could have shipped "phoenix" in 2003 and we'd be in a different world right now.

Back to Buffy+. Now, I wanted to call it Netscape 7.5. All the changes we did, it deserved that version number. From a marketing perspective, we would've gotten more downloads, made more noise. Mr. Cambell soup, excuse me, the head of Netscape.com at the time wasn't a fan of the browser at all (like the CompuServe guy knows what good software looks like...please). So the versioning was bumped down to Netscape 7.1, and I did let the team down here (but we were shipping, period, and that's really what mattered).

All that was left was the Netscape 7.1 t-shirt. No one was around to freaking lead that effort either so I had to get that shit done too. Now, if there's no t-shirt, then the project is ass, basically.

So, I talked one of our designers to create a matrix style t-shirt, with the slogan "the browser reloaded". The reason for that t-shirt design was because I had taken the team out to go see the Matrix Reloaded. It was a good movie and it was great taking the team out to go see it.

Next...Netscape 7.1 launch, the end of CPD (like someone going into bldg 21 to kill all the jedi) aka revenge of the DG, and a new hope...

Posted by rebron at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)

June 09, 2005

Book of Netscape: Chapter 2 part 5 synopsis

By now I'm sure my wife (who's a lawyer) is like, why are you writing all this? A: It's bedtime, someone asked, I didn't sign anything went I left AOL (they forgot about me), so here we go.

Last I left it was Oct 2002 and I just took over product management for Netscape 7.x. There were many people in CPD wondering what's next, what's there to do, what should I be working on. It was a bit before Netscape 7 launched and during the summer that Phoenix (now Firefox) was started.

Just so you know, Phoenix was the code name for a Netscape.com redesign. The NSCP.com designers created a pretty cool logo for it, the name sounded good and I guess that's why Blake and Hyatt used it for the browser or maybe it was for another reason, you'll have to ask them. Like all NSCP.com redesigns, the Phoenix redesign was never completed (I don't even remember what it was) and we moved on to another redesign and that's why there's 4 to 5 different designs on NSCP.com. Site architecture is important, and good design is something you build on not have to redesign again in 6 months.

While we're on code names, Netscape 7's was Mach V, named after the car in Speed Racer. Netscape 7 was all about speed. A lot of speed optimizations happened during this period, and I believe this is what helped phoenix move along as well.

A funny thing about Netscape 7 and Mozilla at the time. NSCP 7 was based on Mozilla 1.0. Mozilla 1.0 shipped in June. Mozilla 1.1 shipped in August and Netscape 7.0 also shipped in August. Needless to say, Mozilla took a little bit of steam away from the NSCP 7 launch especially since Mozilla 1.0 had a "popup blocker" and NSCP 7.0 didn't.

I had told the PM at the time, you should include the popup blocker. It was the right thing to do because popups were being abused by very, very annoying companies who aren't smart enough to keep people at their website thus making one page view equal two or more. Oh, but we work for one of those companies don't we. Right. Not so easy a decision. (The thing was, popup blocking was inevitable so we should've put it in.)

NSCP 7.01 was born specifically for the popup blocker err, "popup suppression" feature. "Block", "suppress", SAME FREAKING THING DG (and why is choice of word a VP decision?). It truly was a popup blocker feature though, the feature in Mozilla 1.0 just was a pref to disable window.open. But we got popup blocking out, it was a good implementation and set the stage for more browsers having built-in popup blockers (AOL client, IE 6 XP SP2, etc).

We launched Netscape 7.01 on a Monday and it went pretty smoothly, great in fact. It was exciting even though I had been through so many product launches in the past. This one was on me though, I pulled the trigger as to when we launched and it was an awesome feeling.

--
...so why care or work on a browser product that's on a decline and has single digit market share. A: Because it has single digit market share out of millions of users, I believed in the potential of the technology (you're seeing some of the results now w/ Firefox and Thunderbird), the NSCP browser generated money for Netscape, still does, and when I joined Netscape this is what I said I was going to do, lead a browser release. I didn't think I could turn Netscape around that would've taken a miracle. The whole time I was thinking, how can we keep people working on mozilla because this technology needs to keep moving.

Buffy ...you're going to like this next story.

Posted by rebron at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)

June 07, 2005

Opera? What are you doing?

Asa commented on this already but this is just dumb. How can Opera put on their homepage that they got PC World's Best Browser Award for 2005 when Mozilla Firefox won PC World's Product of the Year Award chosen best out of 100 products? Firefox beat out a lot of products like flat screen tvs, the Mac mini, etc. Opera's on that list at 88, in other words, 12 products from the bottom of the list.

We have a tag line, Firefox, the browser you can trust. There's a reason I felt comfortable with that tagline.

Opera, that's just embarassing.

Posted by rebron at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

June 05, 2005

Om - I'm all in

From Om Malik, "These are trying times for Microsoft, but I would not even wager even a dime against Chairman Gates." Om, I've got that dime, and I'm all in.

We're talking MacTel duopoly, oops, I guess no one's called it that yet...Who'll be the first reporter to call it Mactel?

I'm not sure what's happening with Apple, Intel, MSFT, IBM, open source, but it's starting to get really interesting. How does an Apple/Intel relationship help Linux and applications for Linux? I guess we'll see in the next couple years.

Posted by rebron at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)

June 02, 2005

spreadfirefox...amazing

SpreadFirefox is a pretty cool project. Some foundational ideas: marketing shouldn't be left to the marketing department; sfx is the open source structure applied to marketing; and, community building is the key to it all. That in a nutshell is SpreadFirefox. There will be a meritocracy established and hopefully we'll be able to get some great marketing minds involved. There are lots of passionate folks already at SpreadFirefox, we need to make sure we have the scalable tools available for this new community to flourish.

The goals are clear - spread the word about Mozilla products, both Firefox and Thunderbird. Of course the unstated goal is to have lots of fun along the way. What gets in the way of having lots of fun? Pointy headed process that's unfortunately very necessary. Too many projects and lack of focus. Lack of clear communication and plans.

It's still a very early project and its definitely great to be part of it and watch it's evolution. It feels like lots of folks are watching too. Everytime I ask, have you seen SpreadFirefox. Yup. Are you signed up? Yup. Just amazing...

Posted by rebron at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

Thunderbird 1.1 Alpha now available

Also for *tester's and developers only*, Thunderbird 1.1 Alpha. Thunderbird 1.1 is going to be nice.

What's in it?
- phishing detection to warn you before clicking on scam links
- podcasting support, improvements to RSS setup
- inline spell checking (huge!)
- ability to detach attachments from messages
- options were re-organized
- lots of goodness

Why no codename for the alpha?
- Thunderbird doesn't need no stinking codenames ;-)
I don't think Thunderbird has had any codenames outside of Minotaur? Don't need to start now with codenames.

Posted by rebron at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

May 31, 2005

Deer Park Alpha 1 for developers is out

If you're a developer, grab 'em. If you're not a developer or part of the Mozilla community, don't say we didn't warn you. It's Deer Park so end users wouldn't download it because clearly Developer Preview Release will still get folks downloading the darn thing.

Posted by rebron at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)

Banking Online

It goes both ways. While there are now just a few banks not supporting Firefox, there are a bunch of banks that aren't doing a good job of securing their web site. Jesse has a write up here.

If you're banking online, you need to demand a secure experience or quit banking online. Some of the banks Jesse has listed is just really surprising. Maybe a small bank or credit union, but not US Bank or CitiBank. Login pages should always be done via https:. Essentially, don't ever login on page that's http or where the login of the page hides the url bar or is a pop-up.

Posted by rebron at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2005

product management rule #185

I just made up the rule number but there is an unstated product management rule. If a product/product launch is successful, it's a team effort, a team win. Absolutely.

If a product/product launch blows/sucks/doesn't go well, it's all product management's fault. And that too is the truth! When something doesn't go well, you as a product manager have to own it. Sucks doesn't it.

Posted by rebron at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2005

get to the beach - using Firefox and Thunderbird on vacation

I was in Cancun last month, never did get to write too much about it. Great time, here's the view from our room. Anyhow, I needed to check my email and just see what was happening at Mozilla and in the real world. Turns out, Club Med Cancun has an Internet cafe type setup.

It was like $10 per 30 minutes or something like that. They only had IE on the machine. I tried surfing around with it, and it just took way too long. Like seriously not usable. Especially having to pay by the minute, I don't think so. I downloaded Firefox, surfed around, checked out everything I needed to check out and I also downloaded Thunderbird too. I couldn't use webmail, I get too much mail so Thunderbird did the trick.

The point though is, if you really need to get something done on the web and time is money (or time not spent on the beach), then Firefox/Thunderbird really does the trick. Anyhow, I installed Firefox and Thunderbird on the rest of the machines. I figured I could help my fellow vacationers out - people should be at the beach not surfing around on the web.

Posted by rebron at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

customers are choosing and their voices are being heard

There's a problem with a web site that you're visiting and you're using Firefox. Get them to fix it. Sometimes I think a web site is just broken in Firefox, I'll check it out in IE and it's broken with that browser too.

So the lesson there is, don't assume the web site works on Internet Explorer just because it doesn't work in Firefox. The web site could just be broken altogether.

Posted by rebron at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)

IBM's Blogging Guidelines

From their web site
Guidelines for IBM Bloggers: Executive Summary
with some commentary with how this could be applied to mozilla.org

1. Know and follow IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines.
> For Mozilla Foundation employees yes. I got to go look that up...for folks on the project you have your own set of guidelines.

2. Blogs, wikis and other forms of online discourse are individual interactions, not corporate communications. IBMers are personally responsible for their posts. Be mindful that what you write will be public for a long time -- protect your privacy.
> This says a couple things. Protect your privacy is probably the most important part of it. You are in the public eye.

3. Identify yourself -- name and, when relevant, role at IBM -- when you blog about IBM or IBM-related matters. And write in the first person. You must make it clear that you are speaking for yourself and not on behalf of IBM.
> It would be a good idea identifiying your contributions to mozilla.org but that will become apparent so not really necessary. If you want to write in the third person about yourself like Rafael thinks Rafael is cool, go right ahead.

4. If you publish a blog or post to a blog and it has something to do with work you do or subjects associated with IBM, use a disclaimer such as this: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."
> Yes. This is the cover my butt statement for something you shouldn't be posting.

5. Respect copyright, fair use and financial disclosure laws.
> Yes.

6. Don’t provide IBM’s or another’s confidential or other proprietary information.
> Yes as it applies to security, and other pointy headed stuff. For the most part, can't get any more open than mozilla.org.

7. Don't cite or reference clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.
> Yes, please don't do this unless it's publicly known e.g. via a news article. It stops people from wanting to partner or work on the project.

8. Respect your audience. Don't use ethnic slurs, personal insults, obscenity, etc., and show proper consideration for others' privacy and for topics that may be considered objectionable or inflammatory -- such as politics and religion.
> Essentially this is the be nice clause. Do what you want though being nice is highly encouraged.

9. Find out who else is blogging on the topic, and cite them.
> Don't need to do this.

10. Don't pick fights, be the first to correct your own mistakes, and don't alter previous posts without indicating that you have done so.
> If you want to pick a fight, see #4 above.

11. Try to add value. Provide worthwhile information and perspective.
> Ummm. No.

Posted by rebron at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)

so, your blog post just got slashdotted

We (mozilla.org) are in a crazy time right now with all eyes on our EVERY move, and reporters and bloggers seeming to hang on our every word, and every comment. There are news articles about job postings, meeting notes, and especially blog post comments.

So what to do:
- Contact me and we'll see what we can do if there are inaccuracies, e.g. contact the reporter, get things clarified.
- You can try and prevent it from happening in the first place by saying the, "these opinions are mine" line and "if you want official comments contact press@mozilla.org." If you're having to put that line in your blog post, re-read your post. MoFo isn't going to be the blog police, but just watch what you say.

That's about it as far as recourse and prevention. If you keep things on the up and up (or if you curse a lot), it probably won't get picked up.

We're working with reporters to make sure they go through press@mozilla.org for clarifications. It's a long road though.

Posted by rebron at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2005

deconstructing the game

Just a quick post inspired by Jeremy Zawodny's post on My Google.

Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc they're all playing the game.

The game is who is the best referrer and who is the best host. That's it. Identity/namespace plays a part (e.g. who will own the biggest namespace and who will play nice) but the game boils down to referrer and host.

Whether it's the play to be the biggest referrer and biggest host or the company most able to monetize their position, that's the game. You can say that this is game will be won by operations rather than app development. Let's see how much more information Google will start to host (e.g. people's mail, map information) and let's see how they build more applications that refer users to more relevant content, advertisers, etc.

Part of winning the game is knowing what game you're playing in the first place. In other words, the game isn't about building the best search engine (or best portal).

Posted by rebron at 08:21 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2005

young guns are here

Welcome Josh and Blake K. I believe Jesse should be coming soon and of course we've had mconnor and bsmedberg working on the project for quite some time. It's nice to see the new influx of young guns working on the project.

I write this after finishing off my glass of milk and chocolate cake.

Posted by rebron at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2005

more wishful thinking

So the concepts:

- user centric versus company/destination centric, i.e. web sites come to me instead of me coming to them and I broadcast back out to 'em
- need to figure out authentication model and "membership"/grouping i.e. I don't want to make my friends register for Flickr, Ofoto, Snapfish, Evite, some Yahoo service, some Google service, some MSN service, etc, etc.
- move concept of identity from email address to domain e.g. rebron@hotmail.com to http://www.rebron.org or http://www.googyhoomsft.com/rebron
- this is essentially an open version of .Mac meets LiveJournal/Movable Type
- storage galore

Posted by rebron at 01:22 AM | Comments (0)

wishful thinking

Bill Gates' vision was a PC in every home or something like that. Well, what I see (and someone already said this I'm sure) is a "home" on the web for everybody. Essentially, everyone should have a web site similar to mine, others from Mozilla. Of course I'm hoping these web sites are 100x more advanced than it is today and easier to manage.

What's funny is just the progression of things. One of the very first things people at Netscape were encouraged to do was build a web site for themselves. Everyone had a personal web site and now 10 years later people/employees are blogging like it's new or something and of course MSFT is leading the charge with the scobelizer as if they invented the whole thing.

What's "new" is that it's a little easier to post content on the web, and these blogs have features like archiving but the concept is the same. Further, sites like mine, we're adding functionality (like photo galleries) ourselves and being our own mini-portal ALREADY.

So anyhow the twist is, in order for this concept to work, companies like Google, Yahoo, MSFT, etc need to change their thinking of being a destination. Companies need to stop being so company-centric and be more user-centric. Companies need to think about being service providers versus trying to own the whole experience. Yahoo, MSFT, Google, etc they can't do it all.

What does this mean in practice? Here are some of the scenarios:
- When I meet someone, I give them my business card and all it has on it is my url, rebron.org. My website should have all my contact information on there and that person should be able to subscribe to my info if they want.
- When I want a job, I should login to rebron.org, upload my resume and it should ping careers.com, dice.com, etc. and they should be able to parse that structured resume.
- If everyone has a web site, I should be able to group a set of my friends (aka a blog roll, buddy list).
- I should be able to upload my photos to my website and managed it via my preferred service e.g. Flickr and print to my preferred photo printing company.

Jim Bankoff at AOL calls this the "a la carte" experience. The problem he tried to solve was how to win at each of those individual "a la carte" services. What he should have tried to resolve was how to bring these "a la carte" experiences together.

Posted by rebron at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2005

That was quick, NSCP 8.0.1

It looks like NSCP 8.0.1 is out the door. Folks sticking with Netscape should get the latest version. I'm on my Mac right now so can't test it out for you to see if it included the fixes in Firefox 1.0.4.

Posted by rebron at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)

Netscape 8 Thoughts for Developers, etc

Like I said, others can comment on the Netscape 8 product itself. There are some things that need to be addressed. There are unofficial comments/opinions but I think they make sense. For official comments, folks should contact press@mozilla.org.

So here we go:

--

Q: How do I certify my web application for Netscape 8?
A: You'll need to ask Netscape but it seems like you code your web application to work on Gecko as you would and check against IE which is also part of Netscape 8. You wouldn't necessarily code for Netscape 8.

Q: Should Netscape 8 be part of our QA matrix?
A: That's a decision you'll need to make and should be based on YOUR web browser market share on YOUR servers as well as your resources. I recommend Firefox 1.0.4 Windows XP SP2 and IE 6 for Win XP SP as tier 1 applications to test at a minimum. These should also be the top two browsers in your web server logs.

Q: What version of Gecko is included in Netscape 8?
A: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20050512 Netscape/8.0 is Netscape 8's user-agent string. It's a little confusing since it should be rv:1.7.7 Gecko/20050415 if it's based on aviary-branch 1.0.3 as Netscape says. Netscape 8 is NOT based on Firefox 1.0.4.

**Update** Netscape 8.0.1 is based on Firefox 1.0.4

Q: Was the Mozilla Foundation involved in the creation of Netscape 8?
A: No, the Mozilla Foundation was not involved in the creation of Netscape 8. The Mozilla Foundation does encourage the use of Mozilla technology in other products.

Q: Is Netscape 8 Windows only?
A: You'll need to ask Netscape. That's what it looks like though. It also looks like its US-English only (for now, maybe a couple more languages will be added).

Q: Netscape 8 added IE for usability/compatability because they say Firefox isn't supported by all web sites. Is that true?
A: While there are a few sites that still may have issues, the issue is a bit exaggerated.

The fact is people are seeing that they have a say in what browser they use and people are choosing Firefox. Market share data and over 57 million downloads say so. Developers are taking notice and they understand the importance of building for web standards and building web applications not Windows IE applications. They can't ignore Firefox users or Safari users or Opera users etc, there's too many of them (you).

Q: What happened to Composer and Netscape Mail, did Netscape drop support for those applications? Will there be more versions of Netscape 7.x?
A: Again, those are questions for Netscape.

Q: What's Netscape's relationship with Mozilla? Will we see a browser from AOL that has dual-rendering engines or Gecko in it (finally)?
A: Sounds like reporter questions. Folks should contact AOL press for that.

Posted by rebron at 07:04 AM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2005

The Flying Mozilla

Mitchell is really the trapeze expert, I've only had the experience of doing trapeze twice, once at ClubMed at Turks & Caicos, and the other time here in Cancun.

This time I was able to do a knee hang "catch" hawk-style. I tried doing a "heels-off" but wasn't able to do the catch. So the photo above is the split second that's not supposed to happen where I'm supposed to be just hanging from Chucho's arms (versus still hanging from the other bar with my knees). It's a pretty cool photo.

Anyway, here's the rest of the slideshow of my trapeze efforts. It's a pretty fun sport(?)/activity. The thrill of flying and twisting in the air is pretty neat. Apparently there's places like Trapeze Arts in Oakland where I could go to school for this.

Posted by rebron at 11:36 AM | Comments (0)

Screw It, I'll Say It

Who in their right mind ships a product the day that the very last Star Wars opens (let alone on a Thursday)? We're talking Star Wars...the very last one.

Brand necrophilia is jwz's term for the Netscape ISP. I don't even know where to start with this one.

**Updated** Comment above is re: releasing on the day of a Star Wars release not a comment on the product itself. Ultimately users and analysts will provide the commentary, won't hear anything from me.

Posted by rebron at 01:32 AM | Comments (0)

SimoHealth

These guys figured it out - you can use Mozilla to build applications outside of email clients and browsers. It doesn't hurt that Marty Fisher, Bill Ong, and Richard Quach are involved. Congrats, congrats, congrats! Anyone wanting to check out yet another application built on Mozilla that's not a browser or email client or html editor or calendar, should go check it out.

I can't wait to see what's next. However, the trend of ex-mozilla (e.g. ex-netscape employees) folks coming out with stuff based on mozilla products is a very neat trend. Like I said, 1/3 of ex-mozilla is over at yhoo, another 1/3 over at google, and the rest at other large important companies or start-ups. And they all know what's up.

**Update**
Download SimoHealth. It's pretty sweet. I thought it was just demo- ware.

Posted by rebron at 12:55 AM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2005

The Duck Boat

Some combinations are awesome like the toaster oven. Genius. Others like the duck boat, well I don't know. It sure isn't pretty and may have served it's purpose but you certainly don't see people driving around in it (unless you're in Boston I guess).

You certainly can't blame the engineers for the duck boat because it works and it's a piece of work. You can blame the people who asked for the boat to be built in the first place though, what the heck were you thinking.

chofmann should go do a duck boat tour while he's in Boston visiting our friends.

--
Duck boat? I could be more explicit in my posts such as the duck boat is a lot like such and such but what's the fun in being explicit.

Posted by rebron at 11:43 PM | Comments (0)

May 16, 2005

What IBM Announcement Means...

So the IBM announcement means a couple things:

1) Here is your reference customer for supporting/deploying Firefox at your company. Do you really need another reference customer? 30,000 is a pretty good number of people and having it widely available to 300,000 employees is pretty good too. There's a bunch more customers like Komatsu (a competitor to Caterpillar), lots of Universities, lots of small to mid-size companies.

2) In case you don't read between the lines, the announcement means IBM is open for business, i.e. if you want help deploying Firefox or supporting web standards in intranet applications, you should go contact them.

I hope we see similar announcements from other consulting companies and software providers.

Posted by rebron at 08:47 PM | Comments (0)

May 13, 2005

Lead Sailboat Strategy

In a boat race (where there's two boats), the leading sailboat has the strategic edge. The boat that's behind has to take all the risks and hopefully catch a break to take the lead. Now all the leading sailboat has to do is watch what the other boat is doing and copy the strategy to win. There's really no point in trying a different strategy when you're in the lead but if it doesn't move fast enough, then the other boat can win.

Which leads us to, what's Microsoft going to do with Internet Explorer 7. Well this is easy, tack to catch that same Firefox wind. Focus on security features, add tabbed browsing, improve on some of the web standards compatability, and engage web developers. Go too much beyond that? Not necessary but I'm sure there's a few extras. In addition, continue hard coding links to IE from other applications, essentially continue those bundling practices that got them in the lead in the first place.

So what's a Firefox to do? Tack? Nope. Call it a day and pull down the sails? Nope. Pull out the motor and turn it on. Sounds like a good strategy to me.

Posted by rebron at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2005

IBM Backs Firefox In-House, >30,000 users already

From the article...

IBM is encouraging its employees to use Firefox, aiding the open-source Web browser's quest to chip away at Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Firefox is already used by about 10 percent of IBM's staff, or about 30,000 people. Starting Friday, IBM workers can download the browser from internal servers and get support from the company's help desk staff.

Posted by rebron at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

"So Easy to Use No Wonder It's #1"

That used to be AOL's slogan and unfortunately their products (like their AIM beta or AOL browser) don't seem to reflect that statement.

I unfortunately still have options in TWX and I want to see AOL succeed. I just don't get what the deal is with all the features and trying to re-invent things when users want simplicity and interoperability (and a little bit of fun) and convenience.

What happens in the big company world is something gets on the roadmap, the train moves, and instead of trying to stop the train, you keep trying to add resources to the train to keep it going. Eventually the train really doesn't get you to where you want to go.

I need to dump these options (I don't have much), I don't know why I'm holding on to 'em.

Posted by rebron at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)

May 11, 2005

Firefox 1.0.4 is out - Go get it

Go grab 'em.

Posted by rebron at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)

Instant Messaging - removing pain points

I'll chat about the Mozilla Security release process, the news around it, the IE blog resposne, etc in another post. Briefly, I suck and the Mozilla engineers as always are doing an awesome job helping protect users on the web and responding quickly. People missed the fact that on Mother's Day, we made changes to update.mozilla.org to protect Firefox users.

Back to the main post. Instant Messaging is a pain point and Trillian is not the answer. WHY DO I HAVE THREE INSTANT MESSAGING CLIENTS ON MY MACHINE? WHY ARE THEY NOT INTEROPERATING? I have YIM, AIM, and MSN Messenger.

This is painful and needs to be fixed. No one is making money on Instant Messenger (I know this because no one buys the advertising in the IM clients, it's shoddy inventory). There's maybe some slight indirect revenue from advertising from embedded links to web sites in the respective IM clients but that's it.

Keep instant messaging simple and open it up so namespaces interoperate. You know, like the phone system. What's painful is I know who's involved in keeping this mess a mess, and I can't get them to budge.

Posted by rebron at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

May 05, 2005

"Microsoft is Boring"

Well, yeah...I didn't say it, Dori Smith said it and Robert Scoble thought to blog about it, and I was thinking it when I was doing my other posts about OSU and their Kool Aid/corn starch escapades.

There was this interview with Bill Gates in Fortune too. Blake had a good post about MSFT's ad campaigns.

Life's too short not to have fun. Sucks to be boring. On that note...

Posted by rebron at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

Go Beavs! Firefox Koolaid and an A+ in Art

Hey Kool Aid...

The folks at OSU are some fun folks. Check out what they did for the Firefox 50 million milestone.

A mural of Firefox on the OSU campus in Kool Aid. A+ in Art for:

* Beth Gordon
* Kim Marshall
* Brandon Philips
* Matt Viehdorfer
* Stuart McKim
* Alex Polvi
* Eric Betts
* Random insomniac guy

(you guys are bad ass!)

GO BEAVS!

**Update**
I just came back from 2 weeks vacation and will be posting more on the trip. That was a lot of fun but it's really nice to come back to fun (and fulfilling) work. How fun is this!

I raise my glass of Kool Aid to OSU!

Posted by rebron at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

Firefox marketing metric

I was sifting through my bookmarks and found this:
Sites that link to Firefox products page via Google

In June 2004, it was 78,000 sites linking to the Mozilla.org Firefox products page. I wanted a Firefox 1.0 launch goal of 200,000 but don't remember what it was then.

As you can see, it's May 2005 and we're at 699,000.

For comparison, IE is at 137,000 sites linking to it's page.

--
I'm going to be a little chatty on my blog. I have been gone for a couple weeks.

Posted by rebron at 12:58 AM | Comments (0)

May 04, 2005

Editing Rant

I don't like that there are so many different interfaces to writing content on the web. I use Composer, Movable Type, and Wikis, three different interfaces, they all do something slightly different but it would be great if there was a little bit of consistency among all three.

- So I use Composer for simple html pages or complex ones that require greater control.
- I use Movable Type as my main interface for my web site.
- I use Wikis so that others can edit a shared document.

Anyone else feel my pain? Wikis and CMS apps like Movable Type and WordPress to need to converge e.g. Drupal but easier to install. Composer should be an extension to Firefox should be able to hook in to Wikis/CMS apps.

Posted by rebron at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2005

Vacation Notification - Raf out until May 3rd

I'm out for vacation (Cancun, Mexico) for two weeks from April 18th to May 3rd. In my absence, you're in good hands. For press related inquiries, please contact Mary Colvig, 650-762-2820; Judi Palmer, 650-762-2812.

For Mozilla business related activities, please contact Chris Beard cbeard AT mozilla.org.

Posted by rebron at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2005

And Chase said, "Let there be chocolate milk"

On the third day Chase said, "Let there be chocolate milk." And milk chuggs magically appeared. All was good in the land of Mozilla.

This is my ode to Chase post who's been an absolute rock star. Chase, I've got my marching orders.

I also stumbled upon Taquitos.net, a site that has 2500 snack reviews and more pictures of chocolate milks cartons. Amazing...Who needs all those reviews on snacks ;-)

Here's the obligatory rss feed: http://www.taquitos.net/snacks.php?page_code=107

Posted by rebron at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)

Jon Udell's Screencast of Greasemonkey/Library Look-up

Very cool, screencast on Greasemonkey and Jon's Library Look-up. Essentially if you don't want to buy a book on Amazon and see if it's at your local library, it's possible to do that with a Greasemonkey script.

We need to do a screen cast for the key features of Firefox and Thunderbird. I should ping Jon about it. Or I could ping my friends over at Macromedia.

He's got a write up on screencasting too.

Posted by rebron at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

Inside Firefox 1.0.3

Seeing the dedication of the Mozilla community (which you and I are a part) with the Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla 1.7.7 release, first hand is just amazing. It's not new as we've been doing this for quite some time, but it's always, always awesome to see.

People's Friday evening plans are rescheduled, weekend plans, working with folks (as is usual) from all over the world whether it's Germany, Japan, too many countries to list.

The press won't see this dedication or maybe they will. Maybe they'll see all the different people involved from top companies and top community members working on the issues. Maybe they'll see the feedback loop and the high quality standards we've set for our products. Maybe they'll see that when we say we are passionate about security, we mean it. Maybe they'll see the fast response time and think of some of the personal sacrifices.

We do our best to work with the press to get the word out to make sure users get the latest security updates. It's tough when the press makes a story out of it instead of making it a public service announcement. The press may go in and compare us to MSFT (it's always favorable) but still not what the focus should be. Or they'll be completely off the mark trying to explain JavaScript engine memory heap vulnerability in their own words, but lately they've been pretty good.

Going forward, Firefox's update mechanism will be the primary mechanism for notifying users of updates versus also using a full on media blitz to get the word out that an update is available. Press releases for security updates seem to cause confusion so we've been going with a security Q&A that we give to reporters that has some better clarification.

Posted by rebron at 10:31 PM | Comments (1)

April 13, 2005

Tucker Carlson Uncomfortable

The IE Blog means well and does serve a purpose of communicating to developers. It's contrived though with this false sense of trying to connect with people.

This last post is like the others before:
Hi my name is x and I'm the person in charge of such and such. I feel for the people posting because it feels so forced. Then the blog post itself feel likes it's been edited by 3-4 people. I don't want to pick on Microsoft because they're trying and they do mean well. The IE blog is Tucker Carlson uncomfortable though.

Steve Rubel has other thoughts on contrived blogs. We'll see more of these "marketing" blogs out as more folks try and grok the whole blogging thing.

Posted by rebron at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)

"Open Source" as a Consumer Attribute Redux

I just posted about this and I forget that Apple has been marketing Open Source as well.

"Apple believes that using Open Source methodology makes Mac OS X a more robust, secure operating system, as its core components have been subjected to the crucible of peer review for decades. Any problems found with this software can be immediately identified and fixed by Apple and the Open Source community."

Let's not forget Apple.
- How do you make money on Open Source? Well, look at Apple.
- Is open source more secure/reliable? Apple thinks so.
- Who markets open source, consumers don't care? Apple thinks they do and should care.

They do a great job of hyping up their open sourceness.

Posted by rebron at 02:32 PM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2005

In Between Condi and Martha Stewart

Do grab yourself a copy of Time Magazine this week. Mitchell is just below Condi Rice and above Martha Stewart on the cover. Inside, I'm actually in the picture with Mitchell, I'm the pair of hands towards the top left corner. You can see my wedding band.

I can see the modeling agencies calling me up to be a hand model. The phone is ringing off the hook. It is pretty neat though to be in Time Magazine. We're certainly proud of Mitchell and I'm glad the project, as a whole