Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on July 21, 2009 by CyberNet.

Mozilla just wrapped up the Firefox 3.5 release a few weeks ago, but they are already going to town on what they can do for future improvements. When they redesigned Firefox 3.0 I thought the new designs were okay, but they weren’t anything that seemed to be revolutionary.

What’s neat about Mozilla, however, is that they’re not afraid to show the world what they’re thinking about doing months or even years ahead of time. They aren’t afraid of the competition coming along and outdoing them, and as a result they can get a lot of quality feedback so that they can fine tune the various aspects of the browser before it gets shipped out to the world.

Keeping in that spirit Mozilla has released some rather polished mockups of the route they’re thinking about going for Firefox 3.7. There’s no word on when Firefox 3.7 is planned to be available, but the last I heard Firefox 3.6 is due out in mid-2010. I’m guessing that puts Firefox 3.7 somewhere in 2011. So don’t get too excited quite yet, because by the time that version is released these design styles may already be outdated.

Below you’ll find some of the various mockups for Firefox 3.7 on Windows, and then I also stumbled upon one Firefox 4.0 mockup that is more of the “hand drawn” style. Before I jump into the screenshots I wanted to pull a quote that I found on the MozillaWiki:

This is sometimes a hard area to explore. Windows applications are not known for their visual design savvy.

They then go on to reference Paint (the Windows 7 version), Zune Player software, and Postbox as being three applications that have nice interfaces. They also mention wanting to remove the Menu Bar, and making the entire interface a bit more streamlined. The screenshots show that they are doing just that:

Firefox 3.7 Mockups (click thumbnail to enlarge)

Firefox 4.0 Mockup (click thumbnail to enlarge)

So what do you think? Is Mozilla on the right track? By the time they actually get these out the door will they already be labeled as outdated?

via Mozilla Wiki [here and here]
Thanks Christian!

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

In what is perhaps the most anti-climactic ending possible to Mozilla’s long and oft-delayed process of bringing Firefox to Window 8, the company has put the kibosh on the entire … Continue reading

Web-based games in your browser are nothing new, and most of the time, you would not expect something that is equal to what you can find on a console to run in your Web browser. Well, Mozilla intends to change that line of thought by working alongside Epic Games. Epic Games happens to be the ones behind the most-used middleware in gaming, and in this latest partnership, both companies will deliver the Unreal Engine 4 framework to the web right in time for the Game Developers Conference that is kicking off in San Francisco next week.

(more…)

Unreal Engine 4 Runs On Firefox original content from Ubergizmo.

This article was written on September 17, 2007 by CyberNet.

Click to Enlarge

I find myself frequently mapping sites to figure out how to get from point A to point B, and today I’ve got an extension that will speed up the process even more. The extension is called Minimap Sidebar Extension, and it’s entire purpose is make viewing a map an unobtrusive and efficient process.

After installing the extension I found a site that had an address listed, and then dragged it over into the "drop zone" located in the sidebar. From there it mapped the address, and in just a few clicks I could get directions to that location. And you don’t have to worry about which mapping service it uses because it supports all of the big ones out-of-the-box: Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live Local.

Here’s a list of the features it has:

• Drag and drop addresses, KML files (for Google Earth), or links that you want to be mapped
• Maps can be open in the sidebar or in a new tab
• Stores a list of addresses for future access
• Get the coordinates of a map
• Embed the map
• Automatically discover geoURL’s and in-line geotags
• Three views: Map, Satellite or Hybrid
• Works with Google, Yahoo!, and Windows Live Local mapping services to get directions to/from an entry and/or set a locally stored ‘Home Address’

This extension is really only for people who use maps frequently…if you hardly map anything you’ll probably forget to use the extension the few times it would probably come in handy. One thing that came to mind when seeing this is that it would really be useful when planning out vacations and looking for hotels/attractions.

Minimap Sidebar Extension [via Google Operating System]

Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on February 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

After several delays, Mozilla was finally able to roll out Firefox 2.0.0.2 and 1.5.0.10 today. The release of Firefox 2.0.0.2 is a pretty big one with 158 bugs being squashed: 21 fixed crashing issues, 4 fixed privacy bugs, and 2 fixed memory leaks. Not only that but Vista users will recognize a huge difference in the way that Firefox handles itself. Here are some of the Vista-related bugs that were fixed:

• Automatic Updates now works with users who have limited account privilege and User Account Control (UAC) enabled.
• Uses the Vista Default Application API which means Firefox should now be able to set itself as the default browser without having to be run as an administrator.
• Before Firefox would remain elevated (a.k.a. running as an administrator) after an update was performed, but that has been fixed.

The remaining bugs relate to under-the-hood work that won’t be visible to you. You will, however, be running a more secure and stable browser by upgrading. The official release notes page has not been posted for either version, but they should be available later on today (1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2).

Download Firefox 1.5.0.10:

Download Firefox 2.0.0.2:

Firefox 1.5.0.x will continue to receive security and stability updates until April 24, 2007 so I highly recommend that you upgrade if you haven’t done so already.

I also put together a portable version of Firefox 2.0.0.2 and that can be downloaded from here. That is great for anyone who wants to take Firefox wherever the road takes you. Of course, if you already have Firefox Portable installed you should just be able to go to the Help menu and use the “Check for updates” option to upgrade Firefox. Note: As Max mentioned below in the comments the upgrade option won’t work until Mozilla activates the Update, which will probably be tonight or tomorrow.

Now I’m just waiting for the new Firefox Addons site to be launched. It was supposed to happen last week, but they ran into some unexpected issues (here, here, and here). They now say that they’ll be doing some additional testing over the next week and a half to help create a list of things that need to be fixed before they ship the new addons site. After that is completed then they’ll make a release schedule. Oh, and don’t worry, it is probably more frustrating for them than it is for us:

It’s embarrassing and frustrating to miss deadlines (as I know from very extensive experience!), and painful to not be able to put your hard work out into the world where it can help people. The entire Remora team has been working almost literally around the clock for the last few weeks, and very hard for half a year before that, and we would like nothing in the world more than to deliver it to the world.

Good Luck Mozilla at getting that rolled out!

Thanks for the tip Alfredo!

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