If you’re using Bon Echo Alpha 3, you’ll notice that when you visit Technorati, the search engine icon changes color. If you select the drop down from the search bar, you’ll also get “Add Technorati Search” as an option.
Here’s what needs to be embedded in the head of your page:
link rel=“search” type=“application/opensearchdescription+xml” title=“Foo” href=“http://foo.com/bar.xml”
e.g.
link rel=“search” type=“application/opensearchdescription+xml” title=“Technorati Search” href=“http://technorati.com/osd.xml”
Then you need to create a similar document: http://technorati.com/osd.xml
I’d advise companies to have an “add search engine to browser” link/image as well using JavaScript as described here or here.
If you’re a search engine, get going on this. I’ve only seen this work on Technorati (works on Live.com too apparently) though I imagine I’ll see this incorporated with most sites — don’t need to be a search company to make this work.
–
Very well done. I’m assuming this is Gavin’s work. Nice!
**Updated w/ more documentation links.
My last day at Mozilla Corp. will be May 15th. People are going to ask why I’m leaving. Chase may have set the standard for this as far as farewell notes go. My reasons for leaving aren’t the same as his though.
(Note: I’m not leaving the mozilla.org project just taking some time off from that too. You’ll see me causing trouble again soon and my bugzilla account will still be the same it’s not tied to rebron@mozilla.com so you can still file bugs against me).
Here are my reasons:
- I’ve been at this for 7 years! since February 1999. Netscape->Mozilla Corp I count it all as the same thing since it’s all been browser work off of NGL. The most I’ve had off in those 7 years was 2 weeks off that I took last year. Time for a break. For real.*
- I’d like two hours of my day back. This is more or less my commute the last 7+ years. HQ is a little far. I have 23,000 miles on the car I bought just last year.
- I set out to help establish Mozilla Corp (done), to ship phoenix/Firefox, which I wanted to do all the way back in 2002 (done), help gain market share for Firefox and restore some balance on the Web (done/mostly done). I think I did an ok job.
What am I going to do next:
- Take some time off. Watch my wife argue in her first trial in front of her former Judge that she clerked for. She’s going after the big bad insurance companies.
- I’m going to garden and landscape our front yard, and coordinate getting the porch fixed.
- Hang out with family and friends. See my niece, call friends up.
- Train for my third Ironman in August and try and raise some more money for Leukemia/Lymphoma Society.
I’m not sure what I’m doing next work wise, e.g. I’m not going to Google, or Flock/Microsoft (please don’t insult me). One thing for sure, I’ll still be participating w/ mozilla.org down the road. Too much fun, too much invested, and too important not to be where all the action is. :)
*For the old timers…I never did get my sabbatical from way back when.
Full collection (more photos)
Materials cost me about $2-3,000, and I would value all of this stuff to be about $10-$15,000, but priceless really. I have sold some stuff before and gave away other beadwork (bags, jewelry, beaded turtles).
Top to bottom:
- beaded headband, via a loom
- beaded choker, w/ Thunderbird drop, lazy stitch
- matching beaded armbands, lazy stitch
- beaded belt, that still fits, lazy stitch
- beaded apron, lazy stitch, back is ribbon work stitched up by Mom (Mom was also in charge of sewing on all the fringe and backing, I did all the beadwork and design though)
- beaded side tabs?, lazy stitch
- in the middle is a 24″ roach that I wear on my head, it’s porcupine hair and deer hair
- beaded knee drops, via a loom
- angora goat leg coverings
- fully beaded mocassins, lazy stitched, latigo soles
How we got from zero to tens of millions of users for Firefox is through having a great product and telling a great story that had lots and lots of sub-plots. We took photographs, talked to people, had everyone pass on those stories, and let people become part of the story too. We didn’t do any marketing — we just had good stories to share.
What stories do we want to tell about Firefox/Mozilla this year? How about:
- How we will come together to build Firefox 2.0, our next generation browser
- How we’ll bring the world even closer with making Firefox available to more countries/languages, to even more people - in China, Japan, India, Brazil, Mexico, Israel, Iraq, etc.
- How we’ll continue to drive cool new Web 2.0 companies build next generation Web applications
- How we collaborate on such a complex product. We’re shipping software not just talking about it. And shipping software is hard.
The Firefox versus IE 7 is a bad story, we shouldn’t be part of that story at all. Doing so will take us away from telling other stories…like the time we were wrapping up localization for Firefox 1.5 for the China release. We were scrambling to get something translated, trying to find our contact in China and he was no where to be found. At the last minute, he popped up, translated the text for us and explained that he was away because his was wife had just “borned” a baby. There’s always difficulty in coordinating with China because of the time difference nevermind that the localization effort there is volunteer-based. There was such a time crunch, we were scrambling, and as soon as we heard what was going on, well clearly what our volunteer in China was doing was more important.
Anyway, there are more stories to tell. Perhaps a story on our localization team in China, what got them started, what their motivations are, and what the Internet climate is in China or in another part of the world where we have localization teams.
Essentially, Yahoo! has published their browser matrix. In laymen’s terms, if you’re using Firefox 1.5 on Yahoo!, regardless of OS platform, you’re getting what they’re classifying as an A-Grade experience.
That’s great!
Since we’re talking grades…K’s nephew Gary, who we’re putting through school, has also gotten straight A’s at his school this last semester. We’re very proud of him.
Back to Yahoo! though. In addition to releasing a browser matrix, they’ve also released a User Interface (UI) library and User Experience (UE) best practices. This is some good stuff, and about time. I know some of the folks who worked on this stuff at Netscape and this is some good advice.
The ones I use (and I guess implicitly recommend) are:
- Talkback
- Chatzilla
- Web Developer
- Alexa Sidebar Again
- Resize Search Box (this should be part of the browser by default)
- BugMeNot
I’ve been installing/uninstalling ones from the contest and I may soon add to this list.
Next year’s theme for me is “economy of motion”. It’s a Wing Chun concept, and somehow work, training, and everyday life all include this concept of valuing efficiency and simplicity.
With swimming, it’s a focus on balance and form. With cycling and running, it’s high cadence — 90 rpms. With work, it’s looking to create the most efficient products for interacting with the Web. With everyday life, it’s balancing all the different things I need to do in one day, week, month. I already see several areas that will be changing, including diet, communication tools (decrease IM usage), and better use of calendars (work, workout). And with Firefox and Thunderbird, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
