Well after about an hour of waiting on Tuesday. Firefox 3 download day finally began.

Even though RC 3 was identical to the final release, I downloaded again just to be counted.  The total for the world record was over 8 Million!

I’ve been reading various complaints from people stating that their fave extensions aren’t working. I’d love to know which ones they are using.

All of the following are working just fine for me:

• Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5
• Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper 1.0.5
• Add Bookmark Here ² 3.0.20080604
• All Your Maps Are Belong To Us 0.4.1
• All-in-One Sidebar 0.7.6
• Autofill Forms 0.9.4.2
• BBCode 0.5.2.2
• Better GCal 0.2.3
• Better Gmail 2 0.5
• Better GReader 0.2.5
• Cert Viewer Plus 1.3
• Chrome List 0.2.2
• Configuration Mania 1.09.2008051801
• Console² 0.3.9.1
• Context Search 0.4.3
• CustomizeGoogle 0.72
• Deepest Sender 0.9.0
• Delicious Bookmarks 2.0.58
• DictionarySearch 3.0.0
• DOM Inspector 2.0.0
• DownloadHelper 3.0.4
• DownThemAll! 1.0.3
• dragdropupload 1.6.7
• Email This! Bookmarklet Extension 2.2.1
• Exif Viewer 1.45
• Facebook Photo Album Downloader 0.2
• Facebook Toolbar 1.2.1
• Feed Sidebar 2.2.1
• Fission 0.9.7.1
• Flashblock 1.5.6
• FlashGot 1.0.3
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer 2.0.47.4
• FoxyTunes 3.0.2
• Google Notebook 1.0.0.20
• Google Toolbar for Firefox 3.1.20080605L
• Greasemonkey 0.8.20080609.0
• gui:config 0.3.6
• History Submenus 1.1
• It’s All Text! 0.8.5
• Key Manager 0.1.3.20080615
• Live HTTP headers 0.14
• Mahalo Share 1.3.12
• MeasureIt 0.3.8
• Minimap Sidebar Extension 0.2.6
• More Tools Menu 1.1
• Mouse Gestures Redox 2.0.0
• MR Tech Toolkit 6.0a29
• Neo Diggler 1.0.5
• No Squint 1.93.2.1
• OPIE 1.2
• OPML Support 1.5
• Paste and Go 2 0.8
• Paste Quote 0.3.3
• PDF Download 1.0.1.2
• Popup ALT Attribute 1.3.2008052801
• Prism for Firefox 0.2
• Resurrect Pages 2.0.2
• Save Link in Folder 1.4.2
• Secure Login 0.9.2.3
• Show Picture 1.2
• ShowIP 0.8.08r14b0251
• Status Buttons 3.0
• StumbleUpon 3.18
• Stylish 0.5.7
• Tab Counter 1.3
• Tab History 1.0.5
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6.1.080416
• Table2Clipboard 0.1.1
• TagSifter 3.0
• Toolbar Buttons 0.5.0.5
• Unhide Passwords 1.2.2
• Update Notifier 0.1.5.4
• Update Scanner 2.2.0
• URL Fixer 1.4.3
• URL Link 2.02.2
• WeatherBug 2.0.0.4
• wmlbrowser 0.7.18
• Yahoo! Toolbar 1.5.1.20080312

Firefox 3 is much improved over Firefox 2. Lots of nice new features, great integration with your OS (no need to “skin” to match) and best of all it’s much faster.

I’m pleased. Good work, Mozilla.

You would think that Mozilla would want to maximize exposure to their Firefox 3 “Download Day”.

But unless you’re so into Firefox that you read the Mozilla blog or the trades, you will only see mention of the date (today as of this writing).

But there is also a time. That is 10:00 AM PDT (-0800 UTC/GMT).

Now last I checked, there 24 time zones on this planet. So, for a good portion of Asia and the Pacific, “Download Day” isn’t on the 17th at all.

There were a number of comments on SpreadFirefox with regard to this.  Many were unhappy.  I can’t blame them. If Mozilla wants hype, then they blew it.

Their best bet it to hope they can set the record with just the downloads from North & South America.  I suspect others won’t even bother for another 24-48 hours (or they’ll just use the update feature in Firefox 2).

I just read mention of the 10:00AM time on the Mozilla blog, but why isn’t (wasn’t) it in prominent places on Mozilla.com?

They blew it.

BTW, as of this writing, for those that want to say “screw the contest, you can get Firefox via one of the mirror sites. You can ignore the warning message you may see on on them and click through to find your download.  As of this early morning writing, Firefox 3 is already on most (if not all) of the mirrors.

Here are a few screenshots of the places you’d expect better information.

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord/

And…

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?from=getfirefox (a/k/a: getfirefox.com and www.mozilla.com).

You blew it, Mozilla.

no buffalo burgers, sorry.

Originally uploaded by Veronica Belmont

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of Wendy Portillo; a kindergarten teacher at Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, Florida.

If not….

She’s made international headlines lately because she chose to humiliate one of her students. Being that this is kindergarten, we’re talking 5-year olds. That makes it pretty bad wouldn’t you say?

The student had been sent to the principal’s office for bad behavior. Upon his return, Ms. Portillo (a fan of Survivor, no doubt) asked the boy to stand before the class. Then she asked each of her students to say what they didn’t like about the child. After that, she had them vote on if he should be allowed to remain in class (perhaps this was a lesson in mob rule?).

He was voted out.  14-2.

And here’s the icing on the cake.:  The boy has Aspberger’s Syndrome (a type of high-functioning Autism).

It’s awful enough that she did this to a 5-year-old, but this one is developmentally disabled.

The story has been all over teh Internets for the past several days. As well as in the news media.

And just like with the infamous Lori Drew case, this one has brought out the Internet Vigilantes in droves.  They’ve posted her home address,phone number and email address all over hell and gone.

Now granted, this is information that is freely available to the public and was on teh Internets in the first place.  But that doesn’t mean we have to lower ourselves to her level…..

With that said….

I’m sure karma will bite this bitch cunt woman in the ass someday.

This is just insane.

I almost never watch TV so I’ve not seen any TV coverage of this yet, but I did find this interview (video) by Harry Smith of CBSNews with the child’s mother.

I was just reading a blog post on this very topic on ZDNet and it reminded me that I’ve felt this way for a long time.

UnixUnity™ is needed if a Unix-like Open Source OS is ever going to really catch on with the masses.

What Linux (er “GNU/Linux”) has going for it is that when it comes to Desktop users, no other Unix-like OS can compete. But there are too damn many flavors of it (distributions). But Linux has the most apps, period. It also has the most users and therefore the most resources available to it’s users.

After all, the FreeBSD “ports” are named so because most of them really are ports - of Linux apps.

And OpenSolaris has a long way to go to catch up with FreeBSD in terms of the number of available applications.

And maybe just maybe, if we narrowed it down to a handful of Unix-like operating systems (instead of dozens), and got focused on really being the best, we (notably the Linux community) could stop wasting time bashing other Operating Systems.

Regardless of the outcome, I’ll use any OS. I never used one that I didn’t (dis)like. But for the time being,  most of my time will be spent in (Ubuntu) Linux.

In the meantime, I just learned of the release of OpenSolaris 2008.5. It’s the first official release of the new and improved “Ubuntu-like” version of OpenSolaris. And compared to previous incarnations of Solaris, it rocks. The difference is like night and day.  We can thank Ian Murdock (and many others) for this. It’s long overdue.

Anyway, I gave it a shot and I was very impressed. Unfortunately the availability of software is very limited, but at least this is a start.  In addition, it won’t run on my computer. Apparently my hardware is too strange/old for that.  I’ve got it running in VirtualBox (for the most part).  It’s a great start, I look forward to it getting even better.

Anyway, if you’re a Linux user (or even if you’re not) with an open mind, I’d recommend checking out OpenSolaris, DesktopBSD and/or PCBSD. They are all Linux alternatives focused on ease of use and are (generally) as easy to set up as the the most user-friendly Linux distros are now.

Me of course, I’ve got 3 Linux distros and Windows Vista (!) installed on my hard drives and 3 more Linux distros, OpenSolaris & FreeBSD running in virtual machines.

Why? Because I can.

Pardon me whilst I bore you with this very very very long post.

Madonna Maniac that I am, I pre-ordered her new CD, Hard Candy from Amazon.com.  And naturally I went for the “Candy Box Special Edition“. Unfortunately it’s not yet arrived (I’m hoping for today).

I own all of her CDs save for the collections/compilations From those I just have the singles for each of the previously unreleased tracks (no need to pay for something I otherwise already  owned).

Oh wait.. I do have You Can Dance (and come to think of it, it was the first CD I ever bought. I bought it the same day I got my first CD player back in 1987).

Anywho, I remember back in the day, before most people (save for those who went clubbing regularly or listened to “Urban Contemporary” radio) ever heard of her, I had her first LP (this was a few years before CDs mind you). Holiday still remains my fave track from it. It’s a classic.

And amazingly she turns 50(!) this August. And she’s till got it (imnsho).

So in her honor, I present my MP3 playlist from yesterday.

The *.ubuntu.com sites are typically swamped on release days and today (as of this writing) is no exception.

Here’s how to avoid the crunch (and ubuntu.com alltogether) and get your Ubuntu CDs.:

• Google for mirror sites. I’ve known (by heart) of a number of Ubuntu mirrors (for both CD images and sources.list) for a few years now.  For example, three typically fast mirrors in the United States are http://ubuntu.osuosl.org/releases/hardy, http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu-releases/hardy/ , and http://mirror.anl.gov/pub/ubuntu-iso/
  
• If you’re the type that wants to verify the MD5SUM of your download, you do not need to get the MD5SUMS from .ubuntu.com. They are on the mirrors and are identical.
• Another option is to create your own CD with jigdo. You’ll note the “jigdo” files on all of the mirrors.  This is a very fast method. In essence you’re downloading all the individual .deb files from any of the package mirrors and using them to create a CD image (identical to the ones on the mirrors).  It’s a very quick way to get your CD image.
• And lastly there is Bittorrent.  The Ubuntu .torrent files are on any of the mirrors, you don’t have to look for them on *.ubuntu.com

I hope you found this helpful.