Ben Goodger put together a great why switch to the Mozilla Firebird browser doc. That guy knows how to make a web page. My attempt some months ago to make a similar doc for the Mozilla application suite wasn't nearly as compelling (but it wasn't marked up using tables either ;-)
And for some interesting reasons why people might switch to not just the new browser, but the Mozilla development effort, check out this nice post from the folks over at Our Story
Asa, I am doing a persuasive speech in a class at The University of Texas, and realized I could use your help. I'm going to try to convince my audience to make a switch from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firebird.
Although I myself am well convinced and am an avid user, I really don't know where to find information comparing the two. I've used both Ben Goodger's and your Firebird advantages pages as sources, but am really looking for unbiased resources. Don't get me wrong though...I definitely appreciate biases in support of Firebird (although everything you both wrote, I can attest to as fact, based on my own experiences).
So if you have any ideas or advice, fill me in. You can respond here or via email.
wow.. .that phoenix doc sure is... um... dense. Reminds me of the cheat sheets I used to use in school! (not that I ever cheated).
While you're gathering advocacy articles this is by far the best one I've read to date. Directed at a specific audience, but makes a few compelling points no matter who you are:
Mozilla: Blogging's Killer App
http://a.wholelottanothing.org/features.blah/entry/006650
I do like Matt's article. I actually read it a while back (for pleasure, not school) and had completely forgotten about it. Thanks, by the way, Chris, for jogging my memory.
On that note, keep on suggesting sirs and mams. I need our community's help.
Too bad the MozillaZine Forums are down (I'm sure I would've found some good stuff in there, or at least been directed to it). I donated, but not for my project sake. Just because I now have a hole in my web surfing activities that needs to be filled once more. :(
Ben's article would be a lot easier to read if it were in a single column. It looks nice, but it's easy to loose your place on the page. I'd use a single centred div with about 50% page width (but with min-width and max-width set), which would make it pretty and useful.
Helen Borrie of the Firebird database project says that the doc "has at least 20 illegal uses of our [the Firebird database community's] trademark. Possibly more, if you keep watching the animations."
Well, let me tell you, I watched the animations. Well, animation, as there's only one. I never knew that searching for 'Firebird' in an online dictionary was infringing on the Firebird database's trademark!
I'm sure that the Firebird database people will be presenting that evidence at the forthcoming trademark infringement trial. I mean, they've said so many times that mozilla.org's usage of the mark is "illegal" that they must be confident that they have a rock solid case. Because if they didn't, wouldn't that be libel?
news://news.atkin.com:119/5.1.0.14.2.20030429125740.033200b8@mail.tpg.com.au
So what are the chances that a bug on Ben's document relating to such things as it's lack of syntax validity (it doesn't pass the validator), it's misuse of html elements (e.g. using 'strong' for the subheadings and for keyboard input, using depreceated elements such as 'i') and various other issues will be WONTFIXed? This isn't an entirely academic question, I stripped all the markup out and remarked the document (in the same style except with a single column) but using standard tags. However, I suspect if I filed a bug, it would be closed immeditely, and people would feel I was stepping on their toes. In fact, it's the second point that makes me think that I'll just keep the changes to myself. Of course, I can file the bug without attaching a patch (which is I guess is the best option...), but again, if it will just be closed, there is no point.