{ Thought of the moment }: “Don't eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.” - Michael Pollan from Unhappy Meals

{ Pimpin' }: I'm playing around at Literary Hack, an experiment in the quick and dirty. It's powered by tumblr.

¶ I've started posting more nerdly stuff over at O'Reilly - here's my author page and entries.

Firefox 3 optimized builds for G4 / G5 / Intel

Dans "mozilla and firefox", mercredi, le 18 juin , à 08:36 PM CST.

Hey, Firefox 3 is finally out, and I’ve got optimized builds hot off of the presses for you.

First of all, let us take a moment’s silence for the seemingly unending Firefox 2.0.0.x micro-updates.

(beat)

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, wow! Firefox 3! There are lots of new features here as well as a brand new Mac OS X theme and tons more. For the full skinny go to the source: Firefox 3 release notes.

What the hell is Minefield?

So for those of you who have followed my Firefox builds, you all know the drill - those builds used the Mozilla development codename “BonEcho” because it was against the Firefox trademark to distribute non-official builds using that name or icon. With Firefox 3 the development name has changed from BonEcho to Minefield (don’t ask me why), so all of the Firefox 3 builds available from this site will be called that instead of Firefox.

As for the icon, in the past I either used the default development icon (the blue earth) or a slightly tweaked version. Minefield’s development icon changed, though, and it’s just… grotesque. Sorry, I can’t mince words here - basically someone took the blue earth icon from BonEcho and tacked on a fuse to it. Get it? Minefield? Bomb? Ahem.

With these builds I’ve reverted back to the blue globe icon instead of using the default development icon, partially for consistency’s sake, and partially because it’s still a heck of a lot better than the bomb icon. Originally I distributed these builds with an icon by Adam Betts that is quite similar to the current Firefox icon, but to avoid any possibility of people thinking these builds were in any way official I’ve stuck with the globe.

Downloads and caveats

There are no longer two separate builds available as Firefox 3 now boasts “native” form widgets. Makes my life easier.

For the moment there is only G5 and Intel builds - I have a G4 laptop but I’m having problems getting Firefox to successfully build on it, so that may take a few days. Believe me, G4 builds will come once I get these issues worked out.

Keep in mind this is a major update: your extensions and themes will probably break unless they have been updated to run on the new version. Not a big deal, but be aware.

Finally, if you really aren’t a big fan of the new redesigned theme, I highly recommend aronnax’s lovely GrApple Firefox themes which basically make Firefox look a heck of a lot like Safari. Not a bad thing in my book, but your mileage may vary.

Without further ado:

» Download Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for Intel

» Download Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for G5

» Download Minefield (Firefox) 3.0 for G4

Shout outs to the folks providing mirror downloads: Seb, Sergio, Stephen, Patrick O, Stephen, Karl, Jannis, Jordan, Roy.

Totally not required, but if you feel like donating to help with bandwidth costs, etc., I’d be most grateful. Any excess money raised will be donated to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders). Thanks!

Moving forward there will no longer be more Firefox 2.x builds - as far as I’m concerned it’s obsolete and in the past. That said, I am still chipping away at complete instructions on how to build your own optimized Firefox builds from the comfort of your own home; watch for those in the coming weeks.

As usual, please post feedback and other effluvia in the comments. Enjoy, folks!

Back in the saddle

Dans "apple, mac, and cupertino", jeudi, le 12 juin , à 11:15 AM CST.

Not that anyone probably noticed, but the engine that powers the BeatnikPad (Movable Type) was having some major conniptions after I moved servers just over a week ago. Happily things seem to be working again, including comments, so one more thing is right in the world.

Since I have your attention, I wanted to confirm that there will be optimized Firefox 3 release builds available within a day or so of the official release (slated for June 17th, I believe). Firefox 3 has native form widgets built in (finally!) so there will be no more need for separate builds.

As this is a major release I definitely will build for all three platforms (G4, G5, and Intel) assuming the access I have to a G5 machine doesn’t go down.

So: web site is working again, Firefox 3 builds coming, and I am polishing off fairly complete instructions on how to build your own optimized copies of Firefox to follow soon afterwards.

That is all.

Happy Birthday, Alec!

Dans "daddy lore", dimache, le 1 juin , à 11:11 AM CST.

A year ago almost to the minute that I’m posting this photo Alec was born into the world (at 12:32am to be exact). What followed was everything I could have hoped for and so, so much more.

I’ve sat down numerous times and tried to put into words just how incredible and insane and sleep-deprived and screwed up and inexplicably grounding it is to become a father, but eventually I’ve given up. Fatherhood is probably best experienced, not reminisced, I suppose.

Jonathon Coulton once remarked that becoming a new parent was like “becoming a vampire” - that your old life dies this slow, somewhat painful death, but then you fall in love and are reborn immortal and stronger.

I have fallen in love, and I can definitely say that everything he says is true.

Happy birthday, Alec!

Hooray for Spring

Dans "photographica", dimache, le 11 mai , à 11:03 AM CST.

Optimized Firefox 2.0.0.14 for G5 & Intel Macs

Dans "mozilla and firefox", mercredi, le 23 avril , à 12:29 PM CST.

Firefox 2.0.0.14 is now available and I have put together Intel Mac optimized builds, available below.

Unless Mozilla releases a major update I’ll probably skip every other maintenance / bug release as they seem to be monthly, and I just don’t have the extra time to build new releases every month. Just so you know.

I know I promised G4 builds last time and I still plan to get to these for the 2.0.0.14 release. The main issue is the only G4 machine I have is a Powerbook and it takes forever to build Firefox on it… but I’ll do my best to build for this platform when I have a spare moment.

Here’s what’s new in 2.0.0.14 according to the Mozilla change notes:

• Security fixes.

That’s it!

Download

Intel Mac-optimized Firefox 2.0.0.14

• w/ Firefoxy form widgets
• w/ aqua form widgets

G5-optimized Firefox 2.0.0.14

• w/ Firefoxy form widgets
• w/ aqua form widgets

As I mentioned about, G4 builds should be when I have some time to actually get to them.

Why is the name / icon different?

I really shouldn’t have to keep repeating this, but every time I post a new Firefox release I still seem to get people annoyed / pissed off / confused as to why these builds are missing the Firefox name and icon. So here comes the strong emphasis:

The Firefox name and icon are trademarked and cannot be used with non-official builds. These are non-official builds, so they cannot have the official branding. Pretty straight-forward. Please don’t ask me to build versions with the official branding.

As always, feel free to post your thoughts / experiences / etc. in the comments. Enjoy!