[ music | They Might Be Giants – Battle for The Planet Of The Apes ]

Don’t be fooled, Microsoft is very threatened and is not going to be caught totally off guard. They finally are taking the Web seriously. And they see Mozilla as a threat they can’t cheat out of the market. They can’t cannibalize Mozilla’s sales, because Mozilla has none. They can’t just bundle it with the OS and wait, because Mozilla’s client-side products run on everything from Windows 98 to Windows Vista betas, Linux, MacOS X, and a dozen other niche operating systems. A browser or presentation layer (XAML) tied Vista can’t compete with all of that.

So MS is going to try to take XAML and port it to their handheld OS platform (with the ever changing name), backport it to Windows XP and probably 2000, and possibly even MacOS X. It’ll never move to Linux, because MS can’t afford to legitimize Linux as a Desktop OS, they’ve already admitted it’s a serious threat to the server space. XAML brings with it Microsoft’s mindshare muscle for the legions of Windows devs that think everything MS touches is gold, and the mid-level managers who survive by making the safe choice (“No one was ever fired for buying IBM” now applies to MS for these people).

But why? Why is MS seemingly abandoning trying to make Windows the center of the Internet? They’re not. As MS always does, they’ll make sure XAML applications always run best on a Windows platform by either hindering performance or limiting the features available to ports. XAML is Microsoft’s recognition that Mozilla’s XUL and Firefox technologies can’t be out muscled. Gecko/Firefox 2.0 with Cairo-based rendering will provide exactly the type of platform MS is now building, and Gecko/Firefox is already cross platform and already eating into Microsoft’s marketshare like no one else has ever done.

Looking at what Google did with GMail and GoogleMaps, looking at what Firefox and Mozilla already provide as application platforms, and looking at how they have allowed IE to lay fallow while other competitors have grown stronger, MS realizes they have almost allowed another Netscape to happen, and they have to fight it on a technological level this time. They see what is truly possible with cross-platform web-centric APIs. It is possible to create true applications with the breadth and scope once thought only possible running natively on a client, not straddling the network like this. They see their efforts to push Windows and IE as the key platforms is still failing.

Netscape is dead, but the revolution it started is not. Microsoft once again has to play catch up, but they can’t define the rules this time, at least not yet. They have to try to steal the battlefield first, as when IE became “part” of the OS. But now the battlefield is bigger than one OS market, simply leveraging monopoly power won’t work. We can’t let them steal this battlefield. This is the new browser war, and anyone who dismisses it isn’t looking at the long term like MS is currently.

Making Firefox powerful to users is something for which Mozilla has proven itself to be very capable. The extensibility of Firefox is a great demonstration of Firefox’s potential as a great development platform too. Mozilla’s new goal is to make Firefox easy for users, and attractive to developers without falling into the same trap as the Suite. We’ll see if they can do it.

Anyone have a Wireless Ethernet Bridge (example: Linsys WET11, etc.) that they’d like to sell? I have a charitable group as a client who is in need of one. 802.11b compatibility is a huge plus (yep, the older, slower standard) and around $40-$45 is ideal (but I won’t complain if you want less). Brand really isn’t important, as long as it functions. I’m hoping someone out here in Mozilla-land has one in their closet they aren’t using. Please mail me or comment here. Thanks.

[ music | Simon and Garfunkel – A Most Peculiar Man ]

From Robert Accettura’s Fun With Wordage: Features vs. Usability:

Asa Dotzler Says:
September 4th, 2005 at 10:36 pm

The 95% case just wishes that the JavaScript console had a better interface? I don’t think so. For the overwhelming majority of users, it’s nothing but in the way no matter how mature the user interface.

– A

Dude, let it go already.

[ music | Monty Python – Money Song ]

You can get a free registered copy of Opera 8, as stated here at Download.com and here on SlickDeals. It’s to celebrate ten years of Opera. “Simply e-mail registerme@opera.com to obtain a registration code. This offer is valid from 12 a.m. Tuesday, August 30 to 12 a.m. Wednesday, August 31 2005 (PDT).” Interestingly enough, Firefox is always free, every day, with no ads. 🙂

Update: They changed things! This link is now where to get your reg code instantly. I sent mine in just after the opening, and didn’t get a reply till an hour ago. The webpage there is instant though.

[ music | Dido – Do You Have A Little Time ]

Several weeks ago I sent in a proposal to MoFo about licensing, and still haven’t recieved an answer back. Rather than let all this time continue to go by wasted, I’ve decided to at least test the waters, as it were. A long time ago I took several old Mozilla.org images, and recreated them in Illustrator so they would scale better for large printing. Turns out it’s rather expensive to do these on a one by one basis. So why not leverage the economies of scale? If we sell a thousand of these things, we get them much cheaper and better quality than you could swing at Kinkos.

So, to find out if this is feasable while I wait to hear about licensing rights from MoFo, why not take a 45 second survey? It’s in an iframe right here. No personal information is collected. Please be nice and just submit once, so I don’t get over inflated numbers. If there’s a big enough interest, and MoFo greenlights me with licensing, we can make this happen! I’ve tried to guesstimate the price at around $20-$25 tops, but it could be less depending on the response.

Thanks.

[ music | Radiohead – Let Down ]

Yep, only eight hours left in that auction. I will admit it’s been significantly less successful than I anticipated. Less than 500 pageviews according to their counter. I didn’t entirely expect it to sell, but I DID expect more viewership…

[ music | Nirvana – The Man Who Sold the World ]

Well, this is it. I’ve put my ad-space offer thing on eBay. With any luck at all someone will notice it and spread it around the world, and even buy the damn thing. I started it at $1,000 because it’s more honest than a reserve price with a starting bid of $1, and the Buy It Now price of $5k because that’s my pie in the sky dream. We’ll see…

[ music | Digable Planets – Cool Like That ]

Ok, I’m sure everyone has seen this interview with Asa on ZDNet. It’s actually an interesting interview too, not just another fluff piece. Well, on page three of the interview, I read the classiest thing I’ve seen in a long time. ZDNet asked Asa the following:

Opera recently said it is unfair that it is criticised for putting ads in its browser, as they “don’t have a rich sugar daddy like the Mozilla Foundation.” What is your response to this comment?

Now, that’s quite a baiting question, it’s a question about a crackpot comment from a competitor. It’s a softball intended to get a really biting quote. Asa didn’t take the bait, but he did hit a smash homerun. Before he talks about putting the user first, he makes a quick but direct reply about Opera in an extremely classy way:

When you don’t have to worry about monetising the browser, you can think about user. As we’re a non-profit, our goal is merely to sustain ourselves. I agree that Opera need to be profitable, but to do that they have had to make their user experience a little bit worse. Luckily, we can just focus on being sustainable.

I’m not given to being gushy, but well done, Asa. Well done.

[ music | Aerosmith – Dude Looks Like A Lady ]

Well, according to this article, “– Det verkar som om webbstället Spread Firefox hackades i ett försök att skicka ut spam, säger Asa Dotzler, taleskvinna till IDG News.” which translates to: “- It seemes as if the site was hacked in an attempt to send out spam, says spokeswoman Asa Dotzler to IDG News.” And all this time I thought HE was the QA lead. Thanks to Dunderklumpen for the translation and link.

[ music | Duran Duran – Too Much Information ]

Ok folks, to continue my effort to Reboot My Life, I’ve written up a review of web hosting companies I’ve used throughout the years. Dreamhost comes out on top, but there’s a solid second choice there too. Plus, all ad-revenue goes to my Reboot My Life fund, which is always appreciated. 🙂