Firefox 3 Launch Day

It’s finally Firefox download day. Firefox 3 was set to launch at 10am PDT, but it seems that the Mozilla web site has gone down under the strain from everyone hitting the site. I would guess it won’t take too long before Mozilla has the site back up and running, but it’s an hour and 15 minutes after 10am PDT.

At first the site was being slow about coming up, but is now giving an HTTP unavailable message.

2:55 PM EST: Finally got it downloaded. Seems to be running well. From what I can see, the final release has the same build number as the RC 3 release.

2:49 PM EST: Looks like it’s up now. The download link has been changed to version 3. I’m downloading it now.

2:42 PM EST: This is suppose to be the download counter: http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/

2:35 PM EST: Looks like the site is slowly coming back up. The main page has changed, but the links are still point to Firefox 2. I just checked my email and the email from Mozilla has arrived. So the actual download day may just be starting a little later than planned.

2:30 PM EST: Finally a new page has come up. There is a Firefox 3 logo on the screen, but the download links still point to 2.0.0.14.

2:28 PM EST: I refreshed the page and got a blue bar across the top this time.

2:16 PM EST: From what I’m hearing, the RC3 release of Firefox 3 is identical to the final release of Firefox 3. I’m not 100% sure this is true, and I won’t really know for sure until I can download it directly from Mozilla.

2:15 PM EST: The site now seems to be coming up, but it is still displaying the Firefox 2 download link.

Firefox 3 Bookmarks and the AwesomeBar

So Firefox 3 is now in beta 5, and it is very impressive. The new version of Firefox includes many improvments, and the addition of some new features.

Bookmarks:

Firefox 3 introduces a new, one-click way to bookmark pages and keep trak of your bookmarks. Check out this article on Dria.org:

Firefox 3 Bookmarks

The AwesomeBar

The new AwesomeBar truly is awesome:

Firefox 3 AwesomeBar

Firefox 3 also has a more Mac-like interface than previous versions of Firefox. I’ve been using the OS X version and I’m very pleased with it.

Boot BartPE from a flash drive

For a while now I’ve been looking for a way to use a flash drive to boot up a computer into BartPE. The CD works fine, but it is a little on the slow side. There are a few utilities that come with BartPE that are suppose to do this for you, but I haven’t been able to get them to work correctly (or not at all seeing as the machine wouldn’t boot from the flash drive).

After looking around for a bit, and doing some research, I finally found a small utility that will make the flash drive bootable and install BartPE onto the flash drive.

The utility is called PeToUSB, and can be found here. It’s a small program that provides a GUI for making the bootable BartPE flash drive. It has worked great for me so far.

iPod Classic

Well, I had been waiting for Apple to release the new iPods, and they finally did. I own a 4 GB second gen Nano, but I just recently filled it up. I never thought I would, but I found myself in the market for a new iPod. I was just waiting to see what Apple would come out with next in the iPod line.

I had a difficult time trying to decide between the iPod touch and the iPod classic. I really like the features on the new iPod touch, but the available space on the device just wasn’t appealing (8 GB or 16 GB). I just didn’t feel like it would be enough for me. So, I decided to go with a black 80 GB iPod Classic.

I’ll have pictures and a review up as soon as it comes in (should be this week sometime). I went out of town this weekend and there was an Apple store where I was, so I went in and had a peak at the new iPod Classic. I was really impressed with it, but I didn’t actually get to load anything on it or anything. The video play back looked great, and of course the sound quiality was excellent. The new interface was interesting and seemed to be very efficient.

I’ll just have to wait for mine to come in.

Mozilla Store

If you like the Firefox and Thunderbird logos, the Mozilla Store was just relaunched. It looks like they’ve got some good merchandise. You can find it at http://store.mozilla.org/

I particularly like the t-shirts and the metro backpack.

Man has thumbs surgically altered to use iPhone

How weird is this? A guy actually paid to have his thumbs altered so he could type on his iPhone more efficiently. I don’t think I could do this for anything.

From what I understand, the doctors actually whittled away the bones in his thumb to make his thumbs smaller, thus increasing the accuracy of typing on a small keypad (such as a PDA…or iPhone…). I don’t think I’ll be on the waiting list for this procedure. Here’s the fully story.

Make your own Moleskin notebook

This is really cool. I found this link on Lifehacker.com. I’m a big fan of Moleskin notebooks. I keep one as a personal journal, and another one just to write down ideas and to take notes with.

This guide shows you how you can create your own Moleskin notebooks. I haven’t tried this yet, but I plan to. I’m having some trouble finding all the needed tools (bone knife, awl, etc.). The local Hobby Lobby in my area doesn’t seem to be open at convenient times for me. I’ll just have to take a long lunch one day and go track them down.

Here’s the guide, good luck if you give it a try:

Make your own Moleskin notebook