The much awaited 2.7 was released.

Much-awaited because it is a giant leap for the backend admin interface, which should make it easier than ever to introduce newbie clients to updating content.

Also it has a built-in upgrade function for both the WP install and the plugins, saving a lot time. Talking about plugins, you can search and install them via the interface – no more searching for download links, unzipping, FTPing…

Plugin directory from within Admin dashboard

Anyway, this should have been called 3.0, but they are against “version number inflation”.

Another intriguing  features is the integration of Google Gears with WordPress when you click on the “Turbo” link in the top right. It crashed my FireFox 3 but worked on Chrome. Supposedly it speeds up posting and admin. We will write more on this later. 

Flash file upload now works, and here's another goodie: pretty Akismet spam comment stats

I would wait a few days for the inevitable security patches and aim to roll out installations in the beginning of 2009.

Firefox 3 (FF3) launched on June 17 2008 with much excitement and fanfare. On launch day (Download Day!) the Mozilla foundation, creators of Firefox, set a new Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours with more than 8 million downloads. A few weeks later that number nearly quadrupled with over 28 million as of July 2nd. If you don’t have it yet, you can download it here.

Firefox Downloads

That is definitely exciting for Mozilla and family and a big congratulations to them! But what does that mean for the average user and the average busy web developer?

First off, a new browser always presents some differences in how it displays pages, and this one is no different. Many of our clients have already experienced some cross version issues and we’re making sure to stay on top of any new fixes.

1. The Good

When I first downloaded Firefox 3, I didn’t notice any new benefits and didn’t understand what the hoopla was all about. But it didn’t take me long to realize that not only did it live up to its claim of being faster and lighter, but it is one of the fastest browsing experiences I have ever had. The best way to test its speed is to open an application that was previously sluggish (in FF2) such as GMAIL, do a “before and after” test and you’ll notice a huge speed difference. It felt like I just put another 4 GB of RAM in my computer.

Aside from the obvious speed benefits and security enhancements FF3 has a lot of tools for developers to quickly add extensions and toolbar features.

2. The Bad

A) Display Problems

We have all experienced at one time or another the quirky display and layout problems between Internet Explorer and Firefox. With FF3, we now have another browser that we must check for styling, layout and positioning problems. Here’s a sample of a positioning problem with our own site (which has since been fixed):

Firefox 2 Display Snapshot for NoDiamonds

Firefox 3 Display Snapshot for NoDiamonds.com

The search bar is positioned to the right in the older version (FF2) and to the left in the newer version (FF3). These are easy and straightforward CSS fixes, but it does mean there is extra work to be done checking sites in a new browser.

We’re building a library of quirks that will help us ensure this transition is seamless for all of our users. Note that the quirks may not be due to bugs but to FF3’s better implementation of CSS and XHTML standards. The jury is still out on this one.

All of our internal testing now requires cross browser checks for 6 browsers: FF2, FF3, IE6, IE7, Safari and Opera.

B) Crashes
Not sure if it is my computer , but since installing FF3 , I’ve encountered a few crashes. Some sites that I visited crashed pretty hard within a few hours of installation.

At any rate, I’m still a believer and am sure these hiccups will be worked out soon.

3) The Tips
A) Simultaneous Firefox Versions on a Single Computer

If you’re a developer, you may need to simultaneously run both versions of Firefox for some time before ultimately switching to the new version completely. We initially tried to run the 2 versions “out-of-the-box” but every time we clicked on the new desktop shortcut it would execute the new version without trying to access the old version. Here is a helpful tutorial which shows you exactly how to run 2 FF versions simultaneously.

B) URL bar

The old URL predictor bar in the older version (FF2) was simple and useful. Sometimes as the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. This could well be the case for the new and “improved” URLbar. If you have downloaded the latest version and tried to type in any url address , you’ll notice a lot of new jumbled text that makes the url bar seem cluttered. It is difficult to see the actual target site and degrades the experience. Here’s a way to turn off this new and improved feature.

Re-Cap

All in all, we think that the new Firefox release will definitely help FF increase its penetration into Internet Explorer’s currently dominant browser position. Perhaps the ease of use, speed and new security enhancements will help catapult FF3 past its 20% market share mark. Just watch out though because Microsoft is close behind with its IE8 version coming soon.

Firefox vs Microsoft Market Share Stats

Source: Net Applications ( http://marketshare.hitslink.com/ )

Since the beginning of the internet in the early nineties, browser market share has wildly fluctuated. As an excellent article on the browser wars at evolt.org explains:

In the First Era of browser history Mosaic and the other early browsers ruled. The Second Era was that of Netscape dominance. Microsoft's challenge to Netscape marked the beginning of the Third Era, the Heroic Age of the Browser Wars. Netscape's bleeding to death marked the start of the Fourth Era of Explorer dominance.

We are now officially in the Fifth Era, where Explorer starts to lose its dominance to an Open Source (freely available) competitor, Firefox by the Mozilla Foundation.

Here are some reasons to switch:

- Inbuilt Popup Blocking
- Tabbed Browsing (viewing more than one web page in a single window)
- Privacy and Security (no AcitveX controls, thus much safer than IE)
- Intelligent Search (Google Search is built into the toolbar, and there's a great “find in page” functionality)
- Lots of neat extensions, like local weather and controlling your music center at the bottom of your browser window

At its peak, IE had 93-94% of the market. As of April 2005, there have been more than 40 million Firefox downloads and Explorer's share is eroding fast. Microsoft originally announced that they would not update IE until the next version of Windows, but now they are scrambling to release an IE 7 beta version by this summer.

I live in Palo Alto, which is in the middle of Silicon Valley, about 40 miles south of San Francisco. Just a few miles from my house are Google, Yahoo, eBay, Apple and many other cutting edge technology companies. Plus there is Sandhill Road, also know as Venture Capital Central, and Stanford University, which provides a lot of the raw materials (aka brains) to fuel the innovations in the Valley.

It was exciting living here during the boom years between 1997 and 2001, where everyone was involved in startups and VC's were lining up to fund them. Recently there's been a resurgence in startups around here. My evidence is anecdotal, and includes job listings, conversations and billboards along the 101 Highway.

I came across 3 interesting startups in the past month:

certainly competitive at $1/DVD, could it be the new Netflix?

Peerflix – tagline: Trade DVDs, don't rent them! For $1 you can trade a DVD in your collection for someone else's DVD. The trade is permanent, so no late fees. I don't know if it will work but it makes perfect sense on paper.

gotvmail – allows you to outsource a complete phone answering system. It can forward phone calls to home offices or cell phones, and you can receive voicemail as email attachments. Thanks Nancy for the hat tip. (I would have included their logo but their site is a little Flash heavy, so there were no readily accessible images to grab).

Cellknight

CellKnight – tagline: Track cell phone minutes usage and STOP paying cell phone minutes overage fines
Basically it sends you an alert of how many minutes you have left in your cellphone's monthly plan, so that you can manage it better and avoid going over. You can see it's a real startup from the use of Clipart in the logo.