about:mozilla - Mozilla Messaging, Firefox 3 Beta 3, Extend Firefox 2 winners, and more
In this issue…
- Mozilla Messaging launches
- Firefox 3 Beta 3 released
- Extend Firefox 2 contest winners
- YDN on the Flickr uploader
- FOSDEM ‘08
- Firefox 3 features article
- Mitchell Baker in Europe
- Developer calendar
- Subscribe to the email newsletter
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, including 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 Firefox. For more information about the Mozilla Messaging launch, see the press release.
Firefox 3 Beta 3 is now available for download. This is the eleventh developer milestone focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso. For an outline of new features that require feedback, please see the DevNews blog post announcing the Beta.
Extend Firefox 2 contest winners
Extend Firefox 2 has wrapped up and the winners have been announced! The contest received well over 100 entries, representing hundreds of hours of hard work from people all over the world. The three Grand Prize winners are: the Minimap Sidebar Exension by Tony Farndon (UK); SamePlace by Massimiliano Mirra (Italy); and Shareaholic by Jay Meattle (USA). For more information about the contest, including the 12 runners up and the various prize packages, see the Mozilla Labs blog post.
When version 3.0 of the Flickr Uploadr came out, Flickr users got a significantly more useful tool for getting their photos online. Things changed significantly behind the scenes as well, as the Flickr Uploadr is now built on top of Mozilla technology — the XULRunner Mozilla runtime package, to be specific. The Yahoo Developer Network (YDN) has put together an Experts at Work video in which Jeremy Zawodny discusses the Flickr Uploadr development with Richard Crowley. Check out the video on the Yahoo Developer Network.
The FOSDEM ‘08 conference is taking place in Brussels on Feb 23-24. Mozilla will be hosting a series of talks in the Mozilla Developer Room, and that schedule is now available on the FOSDEM site. More detailed descriptions of the talks can be found on the Mozilla wiki. An extensions workshop will also be happening on Sunday, led by Mark Finkle and Carsten Book, and Philipp Kewisch will be holding a hands-on workshop encouraging developers to participate in the Mozilla Calendar Project. Brian King blogs about this upcoming event, and more information is available through the Mozilla Wiki FOSDEM ‘08 page.
Percy Cabello, author of the extremely useful Mozilla Links weblog, has written a great and very detailed article outlining many of the new features in Firefox 3 and the underlying Gecko rendering engine. Percy takes a look at the Visual Refresh, Places (the new History/Bookmarks feature), the Location bar changes, Tabbed Browsing, and Search engines, among other features. The four page article, A deep look into Firefox 3 Beta 3, is definitely worth checking out if you’re curious about what new features Firefox 3 is going to include.
Mitchell Baker embarked on a whistle-stop European tour last week, having been invited to speak at the French Senate on February 14th on the topic of “Software - a source of technological and social innovation”. While traveling to Paris, Mitchell decided to visit two other countries in the days beforehand to meet with journalists. Jane Finette and Tristan Nitot have both blogged about Mitchell’s visit, and Tristan has also posted some pictures.
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