We're back from a very enjoyable vacation (more on that in a later post.) With the exception of about two hours, we were without phone and internet service most of the trip so I've got some catching up to do :-)
From reading the comments here and a quick skim of my email, it looks like a lot of interesting things have happened in the last week.
First, on the Mars front, Opportunity has driven free of the sand dune that's had her trapped for some time. You can read the good news over at Steve Squyres' weblog. In addition to the great news about the MER, it's also come down from NASA that the 2007 Mars Pheonix Lander has been green-lighted. I mentioned this project back in January (also mentioned in my NASA briefings coverage here, here, and here.) This is an interesting project because it's built from components and ideas originally designed for earlier missions. The lander will arrive at Mars in mid-2008.
On the Firefox front, Deer Park Alpha 1 was released (Chofmann, Chase, Marcia, Tracy, Sarah and Jay, you guys ROCK!)
Also, Firefox is PC World's Best Product of 2005, Brendan's got some updates for the Roadmap, and the 70,000 employees of the US Health Department now have access to Firefox and support via Novell.
In general news of interest to me, and maybe you, C|Net has added an Open Source category to its C|NET Networks UK Technology Awards, XYZ Computing says that the browser wars are back, Google announced the Summer of Code, and Yahoo is beta'ing a new kind of search.
Oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention that Microsoft announced that IE 7 will not be available for Win2K. This comes as no surprise to me. For the 200+ million users of pre-XP systems: Microsoft has abandoned you. It's time to Get Firefox!
Tomorrow I return to work and more regular blogging.
Posted by asa at June 5, 2005 09:22 PMFYI, Konqueror passed the Acid2 test. I know the test is rather meaningless, but it sounds bad as other major browsers either passed it or is working toward it.
Posted by: minghong on June 6, 2005 12:15 AMNice to see you back, glad the trip was good!
Posted by: Paul on June 6, 2005 01:35 AMIt's good to see that Microsoft don't care about their customers it gives their rivals a chance to overtake them.
Back in the Netscape browser war days Microsoft aimed to support as many platforms as possible. IE5.01 was even released for Windows 3.1 back in 2000, not to mention IE for Solaris and IRIX. Back in those days they wanted to give the impression of IE as a truly cross platform option, these days they're just hoping they can use IE to sell upgrades to XP.
From http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/02/15/373104.aspx :
'I think of today’s announcement as a clear statement back to our customers: “Hey, Microsoft heard you. We’re committing.”'
This shows that Microsoft don't ca\re one bit about their customers. If they did then IE would have been updates years ago.
Posted by: Dave on June 6, 2005 01:46 AMIf I weren't a hardcore Fx devotee bailing from my (t|c)rusty ol' Win2K machine to a Mac this fall, I'd probably be bitching about this lack of support; as it is, it pleases me that that many more people are going to have that much more of a reason to turn to the Fox.
It's almost kind of funny how MS keep shooting themselves in the foot vis-a-vis this browser thing. Mozilla and Opera have been running circles around them for years, and even though they're starting to try to catch up, it all screams "too little, too late".
Posted by: Simon on June 6, 2005 02:02 AMFireFox is gone to Moderately critical again.....source: www.secunia.com
Spoofing is the problem!!
Minor comment, it's Health and Human Services (IE. Education's in there too.). Don't know if it matters that much ;D
Thanx
-uniQ
PS. Hmm, some government(s) seems to like Ffx.
Posted by: uniQ on June 6, 2005 04:06 AMAsa why is your blog not listed at planet.mozilla.org? And why is Blake's blog not listed at feedhouse.mozillazine.org?
It's really annoying having two sets of almost identical but not quite the same Mozilla feeds. Can't you merge them?
Posted by: poynting on June 6, 2005 04:24 AM@poynting: because this blog contains stuff about mars and cats which some people think does not fit into the stuff on planet.mo.org.
Posted by: testboy on June 6, 2005 04:59 AMWelcome back!!!
Mr. Kotter...........
Dude, you're the best.........
Mike
Welcome back :-)
Though you might already know the news, Securia has announced another moderately critical security hole for Firefox and Mozilla Suites. Actually, it was found about a year ago, and re-emerged recetly.
http://secunia.com/advisories/15601/
Posted by: end user on June 6, 2005 06:50 AMWhy is that even considered a vulnerability? Windows have names just the same and they can be accessed via the "target" attribute as well. Is this any different from the frame example on Secunia's website? Something as bland an issue as this better not make the mainstream headlines. Seems really tame. Perhaps that's just someone (me) venting about how security seems to rule our software and social lives these days. ;)
Posted by: KevinFreitas on June 6, 2005 07:02 AMI think you should start by addressing the very real concerns about Spread Firefox expressed here:
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/15822
Posted by: Pedro Gualtieri on June 6, 2005 08:02 AM... and from the Apple front -- Mac OS X will run on regular Intel processors. Steve Jobs just ran a keynote on OS X and a Pentium 4. Transition to carry out through 2006 - 2007, as MS is planning to release Longhorn. Microsoft's Mac division will continue to develop software for this "great platform" -- yes it's a quote. OS X has secretly been compiled for the last 5 years to run on Intel hardware. Even for third party software that won't get ported now, Apple's in house developed Rosetta will run PowerPC binary code on Intel in near real-time.
Man, my head will explode!
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20050606corp.htm
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html
About Win 2000 version of IE7.
It is a 5 (five) year old product or even more if you go by the date when ie7 will be released. So I think it is fair to move on to winXp (or win2003 for servers?)
The support lifecycle for Windows 2000 has been public for very long, so I am not surprised.
I my view 5 years is a good amount of time, and they have released at least 2 "finished" products since.
How is Mozilla's support for 5 year old code ? Where is the security updates for mozilla 1.0.x? mozilla 1.4,x ?
Posted by: Henrik on June 7, 2005 10:39 AM