Anil Dash lists What Firebird Needs before becoming his default browser.
“I’m usually seen by the web development community as a Microsoft apologist. I use (and like using) Windows and my main browser is Internet Explorer 6.0…Despite this confession, I will enthusiastically concede that Firebird is a fantastic browser. ”
Bah! And to prove it, see Zeldman’s gallery of commercial sites designed with web standards.
Oh wait…
Tog says that this is the most important column he has ever written.
“Certainly their battles are not over. Most companies still don’t test, as is more than obvious, but those that don’t at least now know they are failing to do something they really should be doing. Such are not the circumstances for we user-experience flower-hoppers, or whatever touchy-feely name we might be calling ourselves this fortnight.”
Y’all may not believe it after several recent “episodes”, but Rageboy is still cool.
Tim Bray and Co. tried using Flash to create a better interface for their Visual Net application, but later decided to scrap those plans and use DHTML instead. The most interesting bit in the article is this:
“The usability problem wasn’t anything wrong with Flash intrinsically, it’s just that we couldn’t get it to feel enough like being in a browser.
This follows my recent feelings that many people actually want to work within and feel like they’re using a browser. Doesn’t make much sense, but there it is.
Read Tim’s Article.
…Nearly 50% of the CNET reviews of Firebird are negative. I suspect that most of these are based upon earlier versions which, to be honest, were a bit buggy. Too bad I can’t call those folks up and explain to them that the reason some of their favorite sites look like shit in Firebird is that they were designed badly, using completely nonsensical HTML so that the popular, broken browser could display them properly.
See Don Park’s post on why you shouldn’t use XHTML for web pages.
“Unfortunately, it amounts to technical masturbation because there are no real benefits to using XHTML. Even worse, using XHTML can be down right harmful.”
Always nice to hear another, differing opinion 
Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 really is a fabulous browser. I installed it the minute it was released, as version 0.6 still had the god-awful autocomplete bug. Haven’t experienced even the slightest hiccup since. I was browsing from someone else’s machine earlier using IE 6 and realized how good Firebird really is. No popups, tabs, lightweight and clean interface and quick access to everything useful in a browser. Add to that a few (optional) extensions and life is good. It’s not a huge download, so why not just go get it now and see for yourself.
While some would call it a bit early, I’m sticking with and moving to MySQL for everything I possibly can. Just like the press release says, “it will now be easier for you to obtain approval from your
management and customers to use MySQL in mission-critical projects. SAP is
trusting MySQL AB with their database needs, so why shouldn’t everyone?”
Saw my first polo match today. I’ve never ridden a horse without falling off, so I can only imagine the skill it takes to ride that fast while hitting a little ball with a stick. The best part was stomping the divits between chukkers 3 and 4, which means we all got to run around the field and replace bits of sod torn up during the match.