I spent a little time this afternoon reading about Firefox 3 for Developers so I could kind of get an idea of what lies ahead in the next browser release.  I found out some pretty interesting features that will be available for end users, see the list below.  If you are a developer, check out this link for more information that is of interest to developers. 

User experience

• Easier password management. An information bar at the top of the browser window now appears to allow you to save passwords after a successful login.
• Simplified add-on installation. You can now install extensions from third-party download sites in fewer clicks, thanks to the removal of the add-on download site whitelist.
• New Download Manager. The download manager makes it easier to locate your downloaded files.
• Resumable downloads. You can now resume downloads after restarting the browser or resetting your network connection.
• Full page zoom. From the View menu and using keyboard shortcuts, you can now zoom in and out on the content of entire pages — this scales not just the text but the layout and images as well.
• Tab scrolling and quickmenu. Tabs are easier to locate with the new tab scrolling and tab quickmenu features.
• Save what you were doing. Firefox 3 prompts you to see if you’d like to save your current tabs when you exit Firefox.
• Optimized Open in Tabs behavior. Opening a folder of bookmarks in tabs now appends the new tabs instead of replacing the existing ones.
• Easier to resize location and search bars. You can now easily resize the location and search bars using a simple resize handle between them.
• Text selection improvements. You can now select multiple ranges of text using the Control (Command on Macintosh) key. Double-clicking and dragging now selects in “word-by-word” mode. Triple-clicking selects an entire paragraph.
• Find toolbar. The Find toolbar now opens with the current selection.
• Plugin management. Users can now disable individual plugins in the Add-on Manager.
• Integration with Windows Vista. Firefox’s menus now display using Vista’s native theme.
• Integration with Mac OS X. Firefox now uses the Mac OS X spell checker and supports Growl for notifications of completed downloads and available updates.
• Star button. The new star button in the location bar lets you quickly add a new bookmark with a single click. A second click lets you file and tag your new bookmark.
• Tags. You can now associate keywords with your bookmarks to easily sort them by topic.
• Location bar and auto-complete. Type the title or tag of a page in the location bar to quickly find the site you were looking for in your history and bookmarks. Favicons, bookmark, and tag indicators help you see where the results are coming from.
• Smart Bookmarks folder. Firefox’s new Smart Bookmarks folder offers quick access to your recently bookmarked and tagged places, as well as pages you visit frequently.
• Bookmarks and History Organizer. The new unified bookmarks and history organizer lets you easily search your history and bookmarks with multiple views and smart folders for saving your frequent searches.
• Web-based protocol handlers. Web applications, such as your favorite web mail provider, can now be used instead of desktop applications for handling mailto: links from other sites. Similar support is provided for other protocols as well. (Note that web applications do have to register themselves with Firefox before this will work.)
• Easy to use Download Actions. A new Applications preferences pane provides an improved user interface for configuring handlers for various file types and protocol schemes.
• Improved look and feel. Graphics and font handling have been improved to make web sites look better on your screen, including sharper text rendering and better support for fonts with ligatures and complex scripts. In addition, Mac and Linux (Gnome) users will find that Firefox feels more like a native application for their platform than ever, with a new, native, look and feel.
• Color management support. By setting the gfx.color_management.enabled preference in [about:config], you can ask Firefox to use the color profiles embedded in images to adjust the colors to match your computer’s display.
• Offline support. Web applications can take advantage of new features to support being used even when you don’t have an Internet connection.

Security and privacy

• One-click site information. Want to know more about the site you’re visiting? Click the site’s icon in the location bar to see who owns it. Identify information is prominently displayed and easier than ever to understand.
• Malware protection. Firefox 3 warns you if you arrive at a web site that is known to install viruses, spyware, trojans, or other dangerous software (known as malware). You can see what the warning looks like by clicking here.
• Web forgery protection enhanced. Now when you visit a page that’s suspected of being a forgery, you’re shown a special page instead of the contents of the page with a warning. Click here to see what it looks like.
• Easier to understand SSL errors. The errors presented when an invalid SSL certificate is encountered have been clarified to make it easier to understand what the problem is.
• Out-of-date add-on protection. Firefox 3 now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and disables older, insecure versions.
• Secure add-on updates. Add-on update security has been improved by disallowing add-ons that use an insecure update mechanism.
• Anti-virus integration. Firefox 3 now informs anti-virus software when executable files are downloaded.
• Windows Vista parental controls support. Firefox 3 supports the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

Performance

• Reliability. Firefox 3 now stores bookmarks, history, cookies, and preferences in a transactionally secure database format. This means your data is protected against loss even if your system crashes.
• Speed. Firefox 3 has gotten a performance boost by completely replacing the part of the software that handles drawing to your screen, as well as to how page layout work is handled.
• Memory use reduced. Firefox 3 is more memory efficient than ever, with over 300 memory “leak” bugs fixed and new features to help automatically locate and dispose of leaked memory blocks.

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I have no idea where this was at but some dude obviously just can’t take it anymore and goes nuts tearing up “cubicle world” and finally had to be subdued. His rant goes on for a few minutes though before they stop him. I have to admit, if I would have been in the same room I would have probably been too hysterical to help out… this is just good stuff.

Office Worker Goes Absolutely Insane - Watch more free videos

Thanks to Jennifer Laycock on Twitter for posting the cell phone camera view of this, http://tinyurl.com/64mwu6

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This is a social networking project that a friend of mine has been putting together, it’s already launched in a lot of major cities and is starting to shape up pretty good.  If you haven’t already checked out Roov, click here to check it out…

ROOV.com Stories from Trey Tucker on Vimeo.

Also, ran across this video of my friend Chris talking about his Roov project and how it all works.  It’s a really cool “community based” social network, awesome idea…

What is ROOV.com? from Trey Tucker on Vimeo.

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When this story broke yesterday I couldn’t help but laugh.  It’s sad that we live in a society that this could even be an issue.  She’s trying to help sell $4 mocha latte’s folks, not support jihad…  Geesh.  It makes for some good humor though. 

Just a thought though, couldn’t someone just use Photoshop and fix this whole thing, and take Rachel and Dunkin’ Donuts out of the Axis of Evil?? 

BOSTON (AP) — Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled an online advertisement featuring Rachael Ray after complaints that a fringed black-and-white scarf that the celebrity chef wore in the ad offers symbolic support for Muslim extremism and terrorism.

The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because “the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee.”

In the spot, Ray holds an iced coffee while standing in front of trees with pink blossoms.

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin complained that the scarf wrapped around her looked like a kaffiyeh, the traditional Arab headdress. ”The kaffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,” Malkin wrote in her syndicated column.

“Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons,” she said.

A statement issued Wednesday by Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Brands Inc., however, said the scarf had a paisley design, and was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot.

“Absolutely no symbolism was intended,” the company said.

Dunkin’ spokeswoman Michelle King said the ad appeared on the chain’s Web site, as well as other commercial sites.

Amahl Bishara, an anthropology lecturer at the University of Chicago who specializes in media matters relating to the Middle East, said complaints about the scarf’s use in the ad demonstrate misunderstandings of Arab culture and the multiple meanings that symbols can take on depending on someone’s perspective.

“I think that a right-wing blogger making an association between a kaffiyeh and terrorism is just an example of how so much of the complexity of Arab culture has been reduced to a very narrow vision of the Arab world on the part of some people in the U.S.,” Bishara said in a phone interview. “Kaffiyehs are worn every day on the street by Palestinians and other people in the Middle East - by people going to work, going to school, taking care of their families, and just trying to keep warm.”

While some extremists and terrorists may wear kaffiyehs, “To reduce their meaning to support for terrorism has a tacit racist tone to it,” Bishara said.

Malkin, in a posting following up on last week’s column, said of Dunkin’s decision to pull the ad, “It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists.”

Ray, host of the Food Network television program “30 Minute Meals” as well as a syndicated daytime talk show, began appearing in ads for Dunkin’ Donuts in March 2007. When Dunkin’ announced the partnership, it said Ray would be featured in TV, print, radio and online spots in a campaign running through 2010.

Source: ‘Paisley’ or ‘jihad?’ Dunkin’ Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad - May. 29, 2008

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Elliot Noss of Tucows delivered an interesting Keynote Presentation at ISPCON in Chicago.  I have seen this posted on a few of my friends blogs so I decided to take a listen, it’s a great perspective…

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If Mozilla can get together a product that is as effective as outlook and has the ability to sync with Plaxo, LinkedIn, and my Palm Treo Smartphone, I will completely migrate my 20 years worth of Business Data, 2500+ contacts, etc. to Thunderbird 3 when it is complete and out of Beta!  Microsoft, this will essentially severe our ties forever!

Mozilla Messaging Starts Up Operations

New open source organization kicks off development of Thunderbird 3

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. - February 19, 2008 - Mozilla Messaging, the new mail focused subsidiary of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, today announced that it has begun operations.

The initial focus for Mozilla Messaging is the development of Thunderbird 3, which will deliver significant improvements, notably integrated calendaring, better search and enhancements to the overall user experience. Thunderbird is a free, open source email application that is used by millions of people around the world and is built using the same open source development model as the award-winning Mozilla Firefox Web browser.

Mozilla Messaging has staffed a small product development team who will work as part of a community of contributors from around the world.

“We’re excited to renew the focus of our open source community on the future of Thunderbird,” said David Ascher, CEO, Mozilla Messaging. “Every one of us is committed to building a great email product that people will love to use and that serves as the foundation for choice in a critical area of Internet software.”

Mozilla Messaging is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. The board of directors consists of David Ascher, CEO, Mozilla Messaging; Christopher Beard, VP and General Manager, Mozilla Labs; and Marten Mickos, CEO of open source database vendor MySQL AB.

“Thunderbird email is a vital part of the Mozilla project which brings freedom to hundreds of millions of internet users worldwide,” said Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. “By joining the board of Mozilla Messaging, I hope to help the world communicate better.”

For more information, please see the FAQ and the following blog post from David Ascher:

• FAQ: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/press/mozilla-2008-02-19-faq.html
• David Ascher’s blog post: http://ascher.ca/blog/2008/02/19/mozilla-messaging/

Mozilla Messaging Starts Up Operations

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