Category: Mozilla

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Mozilla

Calendar in Thunderbird

I’ve been an advocate of making Calendar an Extension for Thunderbird. I think Calendar extension is important in a Mail client, as most business users are accustomed to this (Microsoft Outlook). As a result, it makes sense for Mozilla to offer such functionality.

Besides matching, it’s also quite convenient. What 2 Apps do most people keep open? Email, and a Calendar. Secondly, Calendar can integrate quite well with email (Appointment notification, etc.)

This really is a giant step in bringing Mozilla closer to the workplace.

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Mozilla

Apple Helping out Mozilla

Very interesting developments lately regarding Apple and Mozilla. At first, it appeared the groups were closer than they appeared. Rumor was that iBrowser (known as Safari now), was going to use then Chimera (now Camino) as it’s basis. Ended up Apple used KHTML, and some claimed it made them “compete”, though most including myself believe any standards compliant engine is good.

Now Pinkerton makes a very interesting find:

Apple has started bundling NSPR and NSS in Panther

From November 3, 2003 @ 10:38 PM

So Apple apparently is providing some sort of Aid for Mozilla technologies. But that’s not all.

David Hyatt notes his work on Safari:

(5) A complete implementation of the XUL box model. Safari on Panther supports the complete XUL box model, including horizontal and vertical boxes, the ability to flex, and the ability to reorder content and reverse content. If you’re building canned content that you control using WebKit, you’ll find a whole new range of layout possibilities at your disposal. Need to create dynamically sized headers and footers and flexible center content? The XUL box model can do that. Need to center an object within the viewport? The XUL box model can do that too.

From October 28, 2003 @ 12:48 AM

Henrik Gemal also notes XUL support in Safari.

Ok, I found it interesting. Perhaps someone else will as well.

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Mozilla

Spam Filtering in Mozilla

A little discussion with David Bienvenu today regarding spam filtering in Mozilla. Allow me to summarize:

I’m a huge fan of the SpamAssassin project. I use it, and love it. It’s not perfect, but does a great job. SpamAssassin, adds a header to all email it searches, known as “X-Spam-Status” It’s “yes” if it’s spam, and “no” if it isn’t. If it’s spam, the message contains the tests that triggered (causing it to be recognized as spam), and it attaches the original message to the email.

As a result of this, the email isn’t pure spam anymore. It contains SpamAssassin markings. That’s good, and bad, depending on how you look at it. My suggestion was to acknowledge other spam products do this, and take advantage of it.

Bug 224318

Several things can be done as noted in the bug:

An option to use X-spam-status over bayes testing.
This in essence disables bayes testing in Mozilla. It uses the spam status to decide if the message is spam. The UI works the same (the little garbage icon’s and junk folder), just the actual spam checking is done by another product. Easier than configuring a filter (for end users). Cleaner UI.

Give weight to x-spam status
This would allow the mozilla to somehow give a weight to spam marked as spam.

Feed Mozilla’s Bayes
This I suggest as a default behavior, as SpamAssassin does this for it’s own bayes engine, and it’s successful. emails marked as spam are automatically acknowledge by Mozilla as spam/ham, and learned by the bayes system in Mozilla. In essence the bayes learns automatically without user interaction.

There are other possibilities as well. Regardless of the method(s) utilized in the future, there is serious room to enhance an already powerful tool. Comments on the bug would be nice. Mozilla Mail kicks butt thanks to it’s ability to provide great features. There has to be a way to utilize this to fight spam better than any other email product on the web.

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Mozilla

Camino Bookmarks

Interesting checkin for Camino. According to Pinkerton’s Post, it brings for some awesome features. In particular Rendezvous Integration makes my list. I’m real excited to see my favorite browser of all time making a stride forward. This is awesome “Top 10” bookmarks sounds interesting too (perhaps that could be ported to Firebird?)

Now where is Camino 1.0? I’m dying for it to get that far. It’s the best browser on the Mac. And in my opinion best browser on any platform.

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Mozilla

Consensual Downloads

I’m a little concerned by some linkage brought by Mozillazine.

Two possible uses here, one inferred is not so good. I’m a bit concerned about this idea being spread around the community. We do NOT want to download Open Source products behind the users back. Doing so would not be a good idea. It will associate fine products like Mozilla, OpenOffice, and Gaim with Spyware and Trojans. If the user wants the files, that’s a different story.

One thing all these products share, is the promise to fight such evils (Mozilla doesn’t download ActiveX, OpenOffice is more secure than Microsoft Office).

An individual who uses such an app for anything such as downloading without the computer owners consent should be well aware that this contradicts the ideas of Open Source, and the values the community holds. Open Source is about freedoms. Freedoms don’t need to happen behind someone back.

While it’s great to see enthusiasm in getting Open Source projects into the world. Don’t do so with unethical means. All it will do is put a negative spin on a good thing. It will hurt, not help Open Source.

Perhaps someone can turn this little Gem into a convenient App so that a user can learn about Open Source alternatives, download and install them from 1 nice little App.

It’s great to be an open source zealot (tell all your friends and family). But don’t do anything that puts open source projects in a negative light. Thousands of programmers have made these projects what they are. They love people promoting their products. But they don’t like people making their products look bad.

I hope others will make a mention of this as well on their blogs, and open source projects. Don’t ruin Open Source.

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Mozilla

Mozilla 1.5 Out / Website

Mozilla 1.5 is out! IMHO a great release. Rock solid. Firebird 0.7 is also out.

I’ve got to bring up a few things about what will be the new Mozilla.org website soon. Why is this being done in XHTML? Why loose that portion of an audience, that is potentially going to switch? The easiest group to get switching is people with older browsers. These people are going to see a rather crummy page. XHTML is great, don’t get me wrong. But there is a time and a place. On a website that needs 100% compatibility to entice people to switch, having an XHTML isn’t a wise idea.

I must admit, I absolutely love the design. And I also must say, I wouldn’t mind having that Nice “M” logo as the icon for Mozilla. That’s a nice version of it. Very nice.

I’m not a fan of going to XHTML on this website. I’m of the belief that it will deter the easiest crowd to persuade to move. The older browser guys. Netscape 4 is still rather widely distributed in corporations. It’s not an extinct browser like some infer. It’s still on quite a few computers. They are the most likely candidates to switch. We should embrace them.

The only way I see it working is if there is a redirect for non-XHTML browsers to the old design. Perhaps prompt them to upgrade to see the new site.

Again, I absolutely love the design. One of the best page designs I’ve seen in a long time.

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Mozilla

Netscape 8.0, an ISP

A report claims that AOL is planning to create Netscape 8.0. But it won’t be a browser. But an ISP. I’ve got some grief about this for several reasons:

  1. Confusing to the end user. Netscape was a popular browser. Then Netscape died. “Mozilla is Netscape, just better” became the cry. Now Netscape is an ISP. Very confusing. Not good.
  2. It’s expected to be strictly an ISP, no bloat. Not even AOL’s AIM service. Instant Messaging is considered to be the new golden child of the Internet. Yet not included into the service. Hmm? Granted they could just download AIM. Still got to wonder.
  3. Killing the little innovation. Lets face it, like AOL or not, they did innovate quite a bit. They managed to bring Instant Messaging to the masses for example. As well as many internet tools. Perhaps childlike. But they brought them.

My guess is that this will be somewhat successful, but I doubt it will save them from their present situation. Here is how I break it down:

Continue reading “Netscape 8.0, an ISP”
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Mozilla

Mozilla 1.5 Soon

It’s got to be coming soon. The release notes are already up.

Nothing on FTP so far. I’m guessing within the next 48 hours. I think this is the most stable release yet. Real bulletproof. And having spell checker built in is a real neat thing. No more downloading each time I upgrade.

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Mozilla

Palm Sync

Palm Sync is now working. David Bienvenu was able to working for some time with me on getting it working. Hopefully he can get this thing improved, and patched up for Thunderbird soon.

Here’s my notes:

  • I can add a record in Thunderbird, and it goes to the Palm, but not vice-versa.
  • A bit inconsistent, I need to add a record via Thunderbird to get it to sync initially. It should sync the first time.
  • Bugs 205952 and 206001 These are data loss bugs.
  • No Conduit UI to select Sync type (221413)
  • Sometimes records can appear twice… don’t know why. No bug for it that I can think of, if I can find something more about this, will file. David saw this too, so I guess that’s enough.

Overall, great to see it going.

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Mozilla

Palm Sync and Patent fixing

David Bienvenu is working hard on getting Palm Sync working on Thunderbird. The last essential feature before I can move to Thunderbird for mail. Hopefully he learns the Palm Sync code well, and can fix those pesky bugs that have been driving me nuts as well as the new one I filed earlier today. 😉 Awesome to see it getting attention. Looking at the Mozillazine forum (I remember a few other threads as well), it’s a popular feature. I’m sure that others will appreciate the effort just as much.

I adjusted my flash animation on Accettura Media to bypass that new IE “feature” thanks to the whole patent lawsuit over embedded objects. Seems to work fine on all browsers. So goody.

It’s a busy day for me… lots of work in the next 72 hours, so not sure if there will be any more posts for a few.

To the pile of books on my bed….