November 2004 Entries

First with screenshots of the new Netscape Browser:

http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb01.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb02.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb03.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb04.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb05.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb06.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb07.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb08.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb09.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb10.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb11.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb12.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb13.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb14.png
http://gemal.dk/misc/nsb15.png

You can read more about the prototype here.

AOL will today unveil a prototype of its revived Netscape Browser, which serves as a test bed for several new features. The new Netscape is based on Firefox, but with a twist - it includes support for switching to Microsoft's IE engine. BetaNews has also learned that Netscape's development was not done in-house by AOL, but rather outsourced to Canadian software firm Mercurial Communications.

The Netscape prototype is built upon Mozilla Firefox 0.9.3, which means it utilizes the same user interface toolkit and Gecko browser engine. The browser's theme has been redone to match Netscape's traditional green style and, as expected, customized Netscape-specific extensions have been added to the toolbar offering weather and news headlines.

Read the article

Translation of my Mozilla extension Launchy are starting to happen. Launchy has now been translated into Danish (da-DK), Italian (it-IT), Polish (pl-PL) and Russian (ru-RU).

If you wish to translate Launchy into your language, please use the following steps:

Start by translating the following files:
- apps.properties
- context.ent
- context.properties
- options.ent
- options.properties
- version.ent.in

Also change the first line of all this files from:
<!-- Translation done by Henrik Gemal http://gemal.dk/ -->
into:
<!-- Translation done by Your Name and Your Contact information -->

Then change "en-US" in this file into your language code:
- contents.rdf

Now test the translation. You can do this very easily by downloading the latest launchy.xpi file and replacing the files in the locale/en-US/ directory with your own files. I don't have the resources to test it, so it's all up to you. If you're using UltraEdit as your editor remember to turn off the setting "Write UTF-8 BOM header". Otherwise Mozilla will fail loading the file.

Finally zip the files and send it to me. The email address is spam at gemal dot dk.

By day, Alexander Vincent is a mild-mannered secretary for a Vallejo real estate broker. By night, he's an online crusader protecting users of a new Internet browser from glitches and security bugs. If he were a superhero, you might call him Mozilla Man. In fact, Vincent is part of a worldwide army of Mozilla men and women who believe in freedom, progress and the inalienable right to an open source browser. Their weapon of faith is Fire- fox, a free browser created by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation as an alternative to Microsoft's ubiquitous Internet Explorer. Officially released this month, Firefox is converting a growing number of Internet users -- and nibbling away at Microsoft's dominance.
Read about Mozilla Man!

Internet Explorer's problems can be traced to Microsoft's shortsightedness during the browser wars of the 1990s. Is the company sowing tomorrow's security woes today? One day early last summer, I looked out my window and saw my neighbor planting a seedling just two feet from the side of his house. I knew that decades from now this particular type of tree would grow huge, and being that close it would certainly damage his house's foundation. I could have gone out there and warned him, but this was the same guy who calls animal control every time my dog steps outside my home. So I said nothing. Revenge is sweet, even if it takes fifty years to fulfill. Around my yard, I space the trees and plants as if they were already full grown. Why do I do this? Because I am a security consultant.
Read the article

Following our two-part interview with Microsoft's Internet Explorer product manager, BetaNews sat down with lead Firefox architect Blake Ross to discuss the recent launch of the browser that has challenged IE's reign. Ross fires back at Microsoft's claims of superiority and offers insight into the future goals of the open source Firefox. 19 year-old Blake Ross seems an unlikely foe for a company that has taken on the U.S. and European governments, but this Stanford student and part-time Mozilla developer is adamant in his mission: Take back the Web. As downloads of Firefox 1.0 surpass 6.5 million, Ross and fellow Firefox developers have the attention of even Microsoft's top brass.
Read the interview

Oddly enough, Microsoft is promoting Mozilla Firefox. The company recently provided the press with a screenshot of MSN Search displayed on the open source browser. Microsoft's PR firm denied using Firefox for any of MSN Search's screenshots. Alert reader Dror Levin read a review of the new MSN Search on the Seattle Post Intelligencer. He noticed something strange about the screenshot in the article, found a larger version of it and was surprised to find out that while the OS was Windows XP, the browser used was Firefox. The photo credit says "(AP Photo/HO/Microsoft)", which means it was distributed to AP by Microsoft. Brian Peterson, of Microsoft's PR firm Waggener Edstrom, said: "None of our approved/distributed screen shots of MSN Search were made using a Mozilla Firefox browser. Moving forward, we will not be commenting on this issue".
Read the article

How bad is this problem? How much junk can get installed on a user's PC by merely visiting a single site? I set out to see for myself -- by visiting a single web page taking advantage of a security hole (in an ordinary fresh copy of Windows XP), and by recording what programs that site caused to be installed on my PC. In the course of my testing, my test PC was brought to a virtual stand-still -- with at least 16 distinct programs installed. I was not shown licenses or other installation prompts for any of these programs, and I certainly didn't consent to their installation on my PC.

See a very scary video of the installations. Scary in the sense that ordinary users using Internet Explorer might experience this.

Read the article

And in some related news:
With the threat of a sophisticated spyware attack looming, a renowned security researcher says the most popular detection and removal tools "fail miserably" at addressing the growing spyware/malware scourge. He found that the best-performing anti-spyware scanner failed to detect about 25 percent of the "critical" files and registry entries installed by the malicious programs.
Read the article

So I've come to the conclusion that the only way to get Firefox used by the internet population at large, and to stop all these stupid spyware exploits and viruses clogging up our precious bandwidth every two days, is guerilla tactics. We need to employ our own version of Microsoft's campaign of the '90s, and simply remove any sign of Internet Explorer from their computers. I don't go in for the customising of Firefox to look exactly like Internet Explorer, partly because Firefox with Qute looks 100 times nicer than IE ever could. But this campaign could be very effective. It's simple: go onto your friend/flatmate/work colleague's computer and get rid of the desktop IE icon and any links from the start menu, quick-launch bar and so on. Install Firefox and make icons in exactly the same place as they'll simply go there to launch it anyway. But make sure you rename them to "Internet" - we don't want our dear friends getting confused, after all. This is something I've already tried out a couple of times and it seems pretty effective. If they're tech-savvy enough to notice that something is different, simply say: "Oh, it's a new version" - then show them some of the new features included. Hey, we're not saying they've been included by Microsoft!

Read the article

This is great news for the Danish people. Frank Hecker have formally approved added the TDC root CA certificates to Mozilla. This means that the next version of NSS will contain the TDC root CA certificates, once that bug 271551 gets checked in.

The TDC root certificates we're talking about are the TDC OCES certificate and the TDC Internet certificate. The TDC OCES certificate is the root certificate for all Digital Signatures (certificates) in Denmark.

How does adding certificates to Mozilla work?
All the trusted certificates in Mozilla live in a separate component called NSS. This component is handling all security function in Mozilla. All Mozilla products includes a version of NSS. This means that different Mozilla products include different versions of NSS. So once we get the TDC root certificates into NSS, the next time Mozilla Firefox or Mozilla Thunderbird chooses to release a version with an updated NSS component the TDC root certificates will be included.

When will the root certificates be available in a Mozilla release?
I'm not sure. I really really hope that we can get this one into the Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 release. But Mozilla Thunderbird might already have settled on a NSS version. So perhaps in Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.1 or 1.1.

What does this mean for me, as a Danish citizen?
This means that once the root certificates gets added to NSS and a product is released, you can fx send a signed email to any recipients and the recipient can verify the digital signature (certificate) without first having, like today, to download and install the root certificate yourself.

Big thanks to both Frank Hecker and Peter Lind Damkjær for working to get the TDC certificates into Mozilla NSS.

Strangely enough has the news about the inclusion of the TDC certificates into Mozilla already be noted in the Danish news:
- Den digitale signatur får blåt stempel af Microsoft
- Digital signatur får ny anerkendelse

Does the popularity of Mozilla Firefox know no bounds? Publicity doing the rounds to support stories about Microsoft's MSN Search seems to include screenshots of something that looks strangely like Firefox. Ido Kenan of Israeli site NRG Maariv has investigated the strange case of a PR shot of this combination labeled "AP Photo/HO/Microsoft". This construction is generally used for photo credits where the photo has been issued by Microsoft, and if you look around you'll find a few other examples. HO simply stands for "Hand Out", which usually means the outfit writing the story (here, Associated Press) sourced the photo from Microsoft. One of the stories that has used it to illustrate an MSN Search review can be seen here, and there are plenty more versions of the AP article. NRG Maariv has as link to a bigger version if you can't quite make out it's Firefox.
Read the article

We are planning for a Firefox 2.0, but will divide the planned work over (at this point) three major Milestones, 1.1 (March 2005), 1.5 (unscheduled) and 2.0 (unscheduled). All development work will be done on the Mozilla trunk, and these releases will coincide with Gecko version revs.

Some likely goals include:
- Improvements to Bookmarks/History
- Per-Site Options
- Enhancements to the Extensions system, Find Toolbar, Software Update, Search and other areas.
- Accessibility compliance

Firefox will be one of the most critical delivery vehicles for Gecko and XULRunner technology in 2005. Our goal is to continue to build a "best of breed" browser product for Windows, Linux and MacOS X. We have ambitious goals for the workload between now and our next major release set. This document is a description of our current thinking on how we intend to get to Firefox 2.0.

Read Firefox 2.0 Roadmap

Opera announced Tuesday that its new browser release will include a feature for rendering a Web page to fit a screen regardless of the screen size. Called ERA (Extensible Rendering Architecture), the feature is available in the latest test version of Opera 7.60. Most Web pages are designed for display on desktop or laptop computer screens with a width of 800 pixels or more, forcing users with smaller window or screen sizes to scroll across pages to fully view them, Opera said. ERA dynamically resizes pages to fit any screen size.
Read the article

Bugzilla people say:
Yesterday and today (part of) the long awaited bugzilla.mozilla.org reorg happened. A new product "Core" was created for things like Necko, Gecko, Editor and other core Gecko components that are shared across all of the Mozilla apps. The Bugs were moved over to the Product. Also a new product "Toolkit" was created, which is obviously for Bugs in the new platform toolkit used by Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird atm (i hope i didn't miss a application. What didn't happen in this reorg was the change of the default assignees to generic adresses. That's all for now, i hope i didn't miss anything.

I think is was Morten from Noget med ild, that during the Danish Mozilla Firefox party Saturday, started with some weird one liners like:
- If you think IE sucks, use Firefox

Some Danish ones:
- Syntes du IE sucks, brug Firefox
- Hvis din browser går i koks, så brug Firefox

So if you got a Firefox one liner, leave a comment. All languages are accepted.

A patch has just landed for Mozilla Calendar which:
Provide a way to share calendars on a LAN. No UI etc yet. Provide a way to automatically reload a calendar. Also no UI.

More detailed info:
This is a simple patch to allow clients on a small network to share a calendar without using a didicated server. File locks are implemented using file flags which are not bullet proof but good enough for small networks and small calendar files (larger files might be split into a ro file with old events and a rw file with only active events).

More info in bug 265274

Firefox 1.0 - Danish Dynamite was held yesterday and it was a HUGE success. We celebrated the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0.
We held the party at Ølbaren where there were a lot of beer and Mozilla conversation.

To get some attention we had produced some posters and stickers. To see a few some pictures, head over to NetFactory.

So a big thanks to all the people that attended the party. Keep spreading the happy Firefox word! You also also buy some Mozilla merchandise

So if you where there, leave a "I was there" comment....

Wouldn't it be great if the Mozilla browser engine were an Active control that could be embedded as in applications? Wouldn't it be great if the Mozilla control used the same API as the Internet Explorer control?
The aim of the Mozilla ActiveX Control project is to be both of these things.

The ActiveX plugin has been updated to work with Firefox 1.0 for Windows. Please don't install this on any other version of Firefox. This version only runs on Firefox 1.0 on Windows and not 0.9, 1.0.1, 1.1 or any other number or platform. You have been warned! Note that unlike previous versions of the control, this one ships in a whitelist mode. I.e, it only supports the Windows Media Player control by default and nothing else. If you you want to enable other controls, or to switch a blacklist mode (at your own risk), refer to the plugin page and the notes concerning the activex.js policy file. This change has been introduced to make the policy consistent with Netscape 7.1/7.2 and to prevent crashes that have been observed with certain 3rd party controls.

Read more

Run Firefox and Thunderbird from a removable/USB drive!

Portable Thunderbird 0.9 (USB Drive-Friendly)
Thunderbird supports running from removable drives with minimal reconfiguration. To make life even easier, I've repackaged Thunderbird as a complete, removable drive-friendly email client.

Portable Firefox 1.0 (USB Drive-Friendly)
Portable Firefox is a fully functional package of Firefox optimized for use on a USB key drive. It has some specially-selected optimizations to make it perform faster and extend the life of your USB key as well as a specialized launcher that will allow most of your favorite extensions to work as you switch computers. It will also work from a CDRW drive (in packet mode), ZIP drives, external hard drives, some MP3 players, flash RAM cards and more.

By Firefox 1.0, Mozilla Update will have a new section for Extension/Theme authors to login to. This new section will give them the ability to manage their extensions and themes that're hosted on Mozilla Update themselves. Authors will have the ability to add a new extension or theme themselves, as well as adding new versions of that extension or theme, updating an existing listing (including being able to change the application-compatibility settings w/o needing a new file), and if they so desire, the ability to remove entirely an old version of an extension or theme or the entire listing.

I'm really really looking forward to when the Developer Control Panel is launched. Trying to get my extensions updated on update.mozilla.org is currently a pain.

I couldn't live without my Miranda. Miranda IM is a multi protocol instant messenger client for Windows. Miranda IM is designed to be resource efficient and easy to use. It uses very little memory and requires no installation. It connects to ICQ, AIM, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, etc. All in one client! And it's free and open source. I use the following plugins. Some of them are bundle with the default installation of Miranda.

• AIM - Talk to AIM people
• MSN - Talk to MSN people
• ICQ - Talk to ICQ people
• Yahoo - Talk to Yahoo people
• Always Online - Helps you restore connection automatically.
• Autorun - Enable/disable to launch Miranda IM with system startup.
• mToolTip - Show various contact infos as tooltip when the cursor is over a contact
• MultiWindow - Enables plugins to add new windows or frames to main Miranda window
• Plugin Uninstaller - Offers the possibility to directly remove plugins
• Smiley Add - Adds smileys to the standard message dialog
• Wassup - Checks for updates
• World Time - Shows dates and times from different timezones

Sometimes things collide:

Microsoft Windows Exec Talks IE Security
With no major updates to Internet Explorer scheduled until Longhorn arrives in 2006, Microsoft has found itself having to evangelize the current merits of IE while competition heats up from newcomers such as Firefox.

Two New IE Vulnerabilities Surface
While this week's headlines have thus far been dominated by news of renewed Web browser development, bug hunters at Secunia have shifted attention back toward the browser's darker side: A seemingly endless stream of security vulnerabilities. Secunia has issued a "moderately critical" advisory for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Found this page today:
Workarounds for "FDBK10939:asp:Menu control only works in IE"

Workaround Steps:
- Install Firefox
- Install user agent spoofer from the updates site like SpoofX or similar.
- Set your useragent spoofer to fake that you are using IE when visiting MS websites.
- Poof, the problem magicly dispears and the menus work.

I've written about what extensions I use before and now it's time for an updated list.

• Buttons - Adds buttons to Thunderbird which can be added to the toolbars.
• CuteMenus - Adds icons to menus and popups.
• Gcache - Displays a google cached version of the webpage.
• InfoLister - Lists vital development information about Firefox
• Favicon Picker - This extension adds UI for replacing bookmark icons.
• Launchy - Open links and mailto's with external applications like Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Outlook etc
• LastTab - Modifies CTRL-TAB to switch to recently selected tabs; CTRL-SHIFT-TAB moves in the opposite direction.
• Link Toolbar - A site navigation toolbar
• Linkification - Converts text links into genuine, clickable links.
• Linky - Open/download/validate links and pictures in tabs or windows.
• LiveBookmarkThis - Gives an Add Live Bookmark option when right-clicking links
• Location Navigator - Tools used to navigate up/down through the numeric portion of a location.
• Named anchors - Adds a new tab to Page Info with information about the named anchors in the current document.
• OpenBook - Allows for customization of the Add Bookmark dialog
• QuickTabPrefToggle - Adds a toggle button for single window mode.
• Popup Allow - Temporarily disables the popup blocker when the Caps Lock key is pressed.
• Search Status - Display the Google PageRank and Alexa popularity in your browser's status bar.
• SwitchProxy Tool - A tool that allows you to manage and switch between multiple proxy configurations quickly and easily.
• TDC CMS - Extension for TDC CMS. Extension I wrote for my company's CMS system.
• Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.

The Unofficial Microsoft Weblog has collected some links about Firefox:
The release of our favorite web browser hasn't gone unnoticed by the media; in fact, many fine publications provided their readers with several articles on Firefox. If you're lookin' to find a surfeit of Firefox, you've come to the right place, matey.
Read the posting

Microsoft founder Bill Gates on Tuesday detailed his company's plan for computer management software and announced a long-awaited Windows update tool. During a keynote speech at the company's IT Forum conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Gates outlined Microsoft's ambitious effort to trim the cost of managing corporate data centers, called the Dynamic Systems Initiative. IT Forum, Microsoft's largest conference in Europe, is expected to draw roughly 4,000 IT professionals.
Read the article

And now for something completly different:
From quick tips to WindowsXP, right through to cool tweak, toys and experiments, PCstats has go you covered with over a hundred new Tech Tips!
Beginners Guides: 104 Great Tech Tips for Windows XP

MozInfo701 has the news that AOL are about to begin beta testing a Netscape browser based on Mozilla Firefox.
Read the posting

This is what the intro says:
Dear users. Thank you for registering to participate in the Netscape Browser Prototype Review. We are excited that, on November 30th, we will unveil many new features that will empower your internet experience. Netscape continues to make the online experience better than ever by developing new browser functionality and security features. And, while other browsers have seen little improvement over recent years - except frequent patches for security leaks - we have consistently added new features to save you time and to make the most out your time online. As a part of our next evolutionary step, we have developed this new Browser Prototype, which could change the way the world masters the web. Please return on Tuesday, Nov. 30th, to try our new prototype. Feel free to discuss it on the forums provided, and do not hesitate to give us feedback or report a bug using the online web forms. Sincerely, The Netscape Browser Team.

BetaNews is also reporting this:
Netscape Revived With Firefox Backing

Launchy is able to use a XML file to add custom applications. So you can add your own applications to Launchy's context menu. At startup Launchy will look for a file called launchy.xml in the chrome directory in your profile.

This is very useful on MacOS or Linux systems where Launchy can't autodetect applications.

To help users create the launchy.xml file I've created a small and simple page. Check it out.

The launchy.xml file must live in the chrome directory in your profile. The exact location of where to put the launchy.xml file can be found in the Launchy options in the launchy.xml tab.

Launchy version 3.6.0 has been released! Launchy is an Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Mozilla Thunderbird extension that will enable you to open current page, links, mailto, images and view source with external applications. Both browsers, media players, FTP clients, download managers and editors are supported. That's applications like Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla, Outlook, BSPlayer, Windows Media Player, GetRight and others. Screenshots.

What's new
- Fixed viewing source of URLs
- Fixed bug when right-clicking on image that is a link.
- Added IrfanView
- Added Polish locale
- Full version history

Get Launchy

Gary Schare, Director of Windows Product Management at Microsoft, sat down with BetaNews to discuss the future of IE, including the possibility of tabbed browsing, Mozilla's free ride, and why Microsoft feels it is better equipped to handle security.

We think the end of the day IE is the better choice, from the topics we've talked about around security and around innovation. There's other elements we haven't even touched on yet around site compatibility and around enterprise management, centralized control and security settings, single log on for enterprise domains, the sort of things that are critical for people to think about. So we do think IE is the better choice, but we are happy that our customers do have a choice, and competition does drive things forward so it's a good thing.

Read the interview

Somebody may have already figured out a better way of doing this, but I thought I'd share the method I'm using to deploy Firefox to my division. This guide will show you how to build and deploy custom Firefox configurations for your business, school, or home networks. This has been tested on XP, 2000, and 2003.
Read the article

Dear Internet Explorer: It's over. Our relationship just hasn't been working for a while, and now, this is it. I'm leaving you for another browser.
Read the article

Other Firefox articles:
- Firefox delivers browser choice
- Tired of spyware? Try another browser
- Safer surfing
- Browser Beats Explorer
- Firefox Could Give IE A Run For The Money

This is driving me a bit nuts. It seems to be almost impossible to detect the build ID of a Mozilla application. I'm using latest nightly builds of all Mozilla applications.

If you in Windows rightclick on a Mozilla EXE file and select properties here's what you get:

Using the File Version property:
thunderbird.exe = 0.9
mozilla.exe = 1.8a5: 2004111204
firefox.exe = 1.0
sunbird.exe = 0.2b

Using the Product Version property:
thunderbird.exe = 1.7.5: 2004111206
mozilla.exe = 1.8a5: 2004111204
firefox.exe = Personal
sunbird.exe = Personal

So this doesn't give my any conclusive information. Mozilla.exe is the most consistent with both File Version and Product Version the same. Why Firefox.exe says Personal in a version field I have no idea about.

Then I thought that I might look in the defaults/pref/ directory for a .js file.
firefox.js = pref("app.build_id", "0000000000");
sunbird.js = pref("app.build_id", "0000000000");
all-thunderbird.js = pref("app.build_id", "2004111206");

This time it's also not very consistent. Thunderbird is the only one to have a build id in it. Mozilla Suite doesn't have a file with app.build_id in it since it's not based on the same base as the other 3 Mozilla apps. In Mozilla Suite you need to look for a file called content\global\build.dtd which is located inside the toolkit.jar file.

Why cant we have a consistent why to detect the build ID? And why is the build ID 0000000000 in a release?

A security company says it has discovered a series of security flaws in Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 that would allow a hacker to take over an SP2 machine when the user browses a Web page. Microsoft downplayed the claims by Finjan Software. A security firm says it has found 10 major security flaws in Microsoft'sRelevant Products/Services from Microsoft Windows XP Latest News about Windows XP Service Pack 2. The weaknesses could allow intruders to bypass many of the security measures implemented by the update. A hacker Latest News about hacker could exploit the flaws to execute malicious code on a user's system by luring the user to a specially created Web page, according to Finjan Software, which reported the vulnerability.
Read the story

Opera Software, the maker of the No. 3 Web browser, reported a third-quarter net loss Friday that was more than three times greater than the year before, despite an increase in revenue. Its shares fell 6.5 percent. Opera reported a loss of 1.68 million kroner ($267,000) for the July-September period, compared with a loss of 559 million kroner in the same period last year. We are suffering from the dollar. Most of the cost increase came from employing more people.
Read article

Just after the release of Mozilla Firefox Microsoft is defended Internet Explorer.
IE has undergoes rigorous code reviews and is no less secure than any other browser.
But what about this (from Asa)
In its latest monthly update, Microsoft was not been able to fix a serious vulnerability in Internet Explorer because the flaw was discovered only a few days before the company's regular update was due. To make matters worse a worm exploiting the flaw was released on Monday, leaving the software giant without any option but to ignore the problem for now.

- Microsoft says Firefox not a threat to IE
- Microsoft Not Worried About Firefox
- Denial?

This doesn't come as a big surprise but anyways:
On the Mac side of things, Goodger said Firefox 1.0 uses Apple's QuickDraw technology to draw to the screen, while the Windows version uses GDI. However, he said the next big move for the Mac version of Firefox would be away from QuickDraw. QuickDraw, which Apple created in 1984, was the basis for 2D screen presentation in the Mac OS. With the advent of Mac OS X, Apple moved away from QuickDraw to its PDF-based Quartz rendering system, which is now incorporated in the Core Graphics architecture of Mac OS X.

Read the article

JiCal is one answer to that perennial question:
How does Linux replace MS Exchanges calendaring and scheduling features?

The JiCal answer is:
Use Ximian Evolution or Mozilla Calendar on your linux desktop and jical to publish free/busy time to your webserver. this will give you scheduling capabilities similar to exchange server but using open standards based on rfc2445.

Read more

Thunderbird just got a bit better today with these two checkins:
- "Composition & Addressing" and "Advanced Account Settings" should be handled by Identity Manager - Screenshot
- Crash over message without Message-ID header when collecting with POP3
- Print Behavior Changed

Very sad but it was bound to happen:
The last members of the original Winamp team have said goodbye to AOL and the door has all but shut on the Nullsoft era, BetaNews has learned. Only a few employees remain to prop up the once-ubiquitous digital audio player with minor updates, but no further improvements to Winamp are expected. Winamp's abandonment comes as no surprise to those close to the company who say the software has been on life support since the resignation of Nullsoft founder and Winamp creator Justin Frankel last January. The marriage of Nullsoft and AOL was always one of discontent. After AOL acquired the small company in 1999 for around $100 million, the young team of Winamp developers was assimilated into a strict corporate culture that begged for rebellion. Although Nullsoft was initially given a long leash by AOL, It wasn't long until the two ideologies collided.
Read the article

Mozilla Firefox's frigivelse har fået lidt omtale i de danske medier:

Jyllands Posten: Microsoft får ny konkurrent
Politiken Ny browserkrig under optrapning
ComputerWorld: Firefox lanceret - Er browserkrigen på vej?
Comon: Firefox genopliver browserkrigen
Datatid: Firefox-browseren er færdigudviklet
TV2 Nyhederne: Microsoft i hård konkurrence
TV2 Finans: Gratis browser med succes
Ingeniøren: 1 mio. downloads af Firefox 1.0 på første døgn

Og husk nu at komme til Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Release Komsammen i Danmark. Det er den 19 november 2004 kl 16.00 på Ølbaren

CNET editor's take: Move over, Internet Explorer. Feature-studded and secure Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is a safer, better choice for Internet browsing.
Editors rating: 8.0 out of 10 (Very good)
The good: Tabbed interface; includes a pop-up blocker; built-in, multiple search tools; built-in RSS reader; stable; free.
The bad: No ActiveX support, so not all sites work.

Read the review

Having launched the much-awaited version 1.0 of the Firefox browser on Tuesday, the Mozilla Foundation is busy planning future enhancements to the open-source product, including the possibility of integrating it with a variety of desktop search tools. The Mozilla Foundation also wants to place Firefox in PCs through OEM (original equipment manufacturer) deals with PC hardware vendors and to continue to sharpen the product's pop-up ad blocking technology.
Read the article

Så er den er!

Selv TV Nyhederne har fanget at Mozilla Firefox 1.0 er kommet på banen. Der var et fint indslag i TV Nyhedernes Finans sektion. Du kan se indslaget her.

An english translation of the broadcast is available here.

On an almost weekly basis there is a new patch for Internet Explorer. IE doesn't support many of the newest standards, and doesn't have features like tabbed browsing. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft is also saying that IE as an independent browser will receive little support once Longhorn arrives. I recently had the following message: "We apologize that MyJobsDB member section only supports Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above on Windows Relevant Products/Services from InterLand Business Hosting Services 95/98/ME/2000/XP at this moment because of incompatible behaviour on other browsers and operating systems, especially in supporting XML. We will continue to enhance our system in order to support other browsers and operating systems in the near future."

Read the article

Gary Vollink, who works at an Edina-based tech firm, is on a quiet crusade to convert his co-workers. He wants them to switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to the increasingly popular Firefox. This upstart browser has seen a surge of IE converts, with downloads exceeding 7 million as of last week. This is partly due to well-publicized security problems involving IE and partly because Firefox boasts features not found in the market-leading Microsoft browser.

Read the article

I've produced some desktop shortcuts for Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Sunbird.

When you rightclick on the shortcuts you can start in safe-mode or show the prefs. A bit like the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop.

Desktop shortcuts:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Mozilla Thunderbird
- Mozilla Sunbird

Save the files and run then. Then go to the Desktop and press F5 to refresh the desktop.

Microsoft has been quietly briefing select partners on its plans for its forthcoming Office 12 series of desktop productivity and server products. According to Microsoft Watch, Microsoft's internal calendar has Beta 1 penciled in for August 29, 2005 with a second beta lined up for December 5, 2005. Unconfirmed reports point to an array of new Office server products on the horizon. These include server versions of Excel, Visio and potentially InfoPath. The extension of Office System server development has left the rumor mill whirling about potential Web services.

Read article

So there are still some Netscape people out there...

A Netscape employee has been fired after he changed the name tags on two pictures of the president elect and Mrs Bush to read arsehole.jpg. Arsehole is English slang for the anal sphincter. The photo title, which appeared on a Netscape site co-branded with CNN, could be seen when viewers clicked on the "properties" of the picture. The name of the photo has now been changed, to the more politically correct georgelaura135.jpg. The photo is the one which is accompanied by a headline and caption reading: "How Bush Won the Election"

Read more

Marketing maverick Rob Davis hit pay dirt with his idea of a consumer-sponsored ad for the open-source browser. Call it Mozilla's October Revolution. It's not exactly taking to the barricades, or even the streets, but for $20 you can stick it to The Man. The Man in this case is not a despot or a government. In the minds of nearly 10,000 web-surfing proletarians the iron fist is Microsoft, and the way to liberty is an open-source browser called Firefox. Taking a page from the social action playbooks of Middle East peaceniks and political activists, a band of Firefox fans pooled their money to take out a full-page ad in the New York Times. The advertisement was the brainchild of Rob Davis, a Minneapolis marketer, who stumbled on Firefox after catching a computer-killing virus in June. Mr. Davis blamed his browser at the time, Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

Read the article