tim ferro
ramblings of a code monkey, fanboy, and uber-geek

“Just two weeks after Mozilla released Firefox 2.0.0.5, the corporation has pushed out another critical security update. Firefox 2.0.0.6 fixes two vulnerabilities.” - Source

Mozilla Security Announcement

“Mozilla could spin Thunderbird off as separate organization” - Source

“Mozilla has been supporting Thunderbird as a product since the beginning of the Foundation. The result is a good, solid product that provides an open alternative for desktop mail. However, the Thunderbird effort is dwarfed by the enormous energy and community focused on the web, Firefox and the ecosystem around it. As a result, Mozilla doesn’t support Thunderbird as much as we do browsing and Firefox and we don’t expect this to change in the foreseeable future. We are convinced that our current focus – delivering the web, mostly through browsing and related services – is the correct priority. At the same time, the Thunderbird team is extremely dedicated and competent, and we all want to see them do as much as possible with Thunderbird.

We have concluded that we should find a new organizational approach for Thunderbird; one that allows the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny.” - Source, Source

Earlier I reported on the release of Microsoft’s new Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008, and SQL Server 2008. Now the development side of the equation is announced officially as betas and RCs.

“Announcing the release of Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, .NET FX 3.5 Beta 2, and Silverlight 1.0 RC” - Source

It’s one of my favorite times of year software wise; time to start talking about the next version of Fedora. Fedora 8 is the next, much anticipated, version of the Fedora Project. The Fedora 8 Schedule is out and we are nearing the feature freeze already. The Test 1 Development Freeze occurred on July 24th. Here is a good article, from comnetslash.com, about what to expect in both the test release and upcoming releases as well. There is also a good write up about proposed features for Fedora 8, from linuxupdate.blogspot.com.

Microsoft is planning to ship its next major version of Windows–known internally as version “7″–within roughly three years, CNET News.com has learned. - Source (CNet)

More coverage at:
Neowin
Download Squad
Engadget
ZDNet

Yellowcard - Paper Walls - This album is pretty sweet. It’s lighter than their last album, Lights and Sounds, but still harder than Ocean Avenue. If you like the last 2 albums, you’ll definitely like this one.

Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist - Thank the gods, the Smashing Pumpkins are finally back together. Their latest release kicks butt. If you like classic Pumpkins, you will like this.

On July 17th, Mozilla released version 2.0.0.5 of the Firefox web browser. It contains critical security updates and it’s important that everyone running Firefox get it ASAP! Also if you aren’t running Firefox, go get this latest release and try it out.

Mozilla Developer Center Announcement
Firefox 2.0.0.5 Release Notes

“Kevin Turner, Micro-soft Corp.’s chief operating officer, said at the company’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver last week that Windows Server 2008 — formerly code-named Longhorn Server — will be launched next February along with upgrades of SQL Server and Visual Studio.” - Source , Second Article

This is going to be a huge launch for Microsoft next year. They are releasing 3 major products at the same time; frankly I can’t wait. Those 3 products make up the best Windows development environment. Throw in Office 2007 and SharePoint 2007 and you’ve got a solid development suite for Windows. Here is ‘Five things to know about Longhorn Server Core‘.

According to David Duchovny (Mulder) himself, there is a script out and both Chris Carter (director) and Gillian Anderson (Scully) are on board. This is huge news for X-Files fanboys like myself. Shooting is set to begin in November and the movie is scheduled for a summer 2008 release. - Source , Second Source