The Mozilla Blog

The Mozilla Campus Reps program saw a lot of growth in 2008 and we plan to build on that momentum by helping students around the world get better organized and do more as they spread Firefox and the Mozilla mission around campus and their communities.

We’re going to start by providing them with a Campus Reps Guide, which is currently in the works.  We’ll make it available both online and in print when it’s ready later this year.  The guide will highlight what the Campus Reps program is about, provide examples of activities and challenges that students can take on, and outline a framework for starting a Mozilla Club on campus.

Clubs are a great way to bring passionate people together to accomplish more than any one person could possibly do on your own…and it makes everything a lot more fun!  For a great example of a successful Mozilla Club, check out mozillaclub at the Jordan University of Science & Technology (JUST).  They had a very busy 2008 and I look forward to seeing more great things from them this year.  Great job guys!

I hope our reps will find inspiration from what the JUST mozillaclub has been able to accomplish and take advantage of the Campus Reps Guide and continued support from us to replicate the Mozilla Club model in 2009.

Editor’s note: Mozilla Labs introduced the first of a series of Design Challenges on Tuesday, January 27, 2009, as part of the Mozilla Labs Concept Series.  See Pascal Finette’s, Mozilla’s open innovation catalyst, comprehensive post on the Mozilla Labs blog, excerpted here:

The Design Challenge is a series of events to encourage innovation, and experimentation in user interface design for the Web. Our aim is to provoke thought, facilitate discussion, and inspire future design directions for Firefox, the Mozilla project, and the Web as a whole.

For the inaugural edition of the Design Challenge, we’re focusing on highlighting the creativity of students: if you don’t know what’s impossible, you’ll accomplish it.

If you’re a student, help us answer the question: “What would a browser look like if the Web was all there was? No windows, no unnecessary trappings. Just the Web.”

March 1st, 2009 is the submission deadline for Initial Mockups. If you’re interested in participating, please see the Labs discussion forums for more information. If your school is interested in participating, please contact Mozilla Labs at conceptseries@mozilla.com.

Editor’s note: Today, Mozilla announced a $100,000 grant to the Wikimedia Foundation to advance open video.  See comprehensive posts from Mike Shaver, VP of Engineering and Chris Blizzard, Director of Evangelism.  Excerpt from Mike’s post here:

We believe that Theora is the best path available today for truly open, truly free video on the internet. We also believe that it can be improved in video quality, in performance, and in quality of implementation, and Mozilla is proud to be supporting the development of Theora software with a $100,000 (USD) grant. Administered by the Wikimedia Foundation, this grant will be used to support development of improved Theora encoders and more powerful playback libraries.

Without question, community participation is at the heart of what makes Mozilla work — and rock. But if you’ve ever tried to describe the multi-dimensional nature of the Mozilla community to someone less than technically inclined, you know it can be a challenge. Where do you start so they can get a feel for the scope of activity and breadth of contributions from people across the world?

What if there was a way to show people how the Mozilla project operates?

Visual designers and data engineers have built interactive visualizations of out of all sorts of Mozilla data –- here’s one charting Firefox 3 downloads over time, for example. Now we think it would be cool to create a visualization that attempts to demystify the collaborative process of making software, while celebrating our contributors. We’ve gotten some early input and design help from the talented team at Stamen Design, but to take this to the next level, we need your help.

An Open Call to Designers

If you’re a visual designer, data visualization guru, student or just interested in hacking on a cool project, join us to generate concepts and prototypes that build upon the LizardFeeder, a cool feed aggregator released earlier this year by Les Orchard.

As Les describes it, LizardFeeder brings together and archives different types of activity from across the far reaches of the Mozilla universe and spits them out in a single, dynamic stream. It’s pretty darn cool to watch on its own, but we’d love to further develop a design concept that is approachable, meaningful—or at least entertaining—to virtually anyone who sees it.

Got an Idea? Share it!

We’re looking for anything from design concepts or mock-ups to full-fledged prototypes. Anyone can submit a concept via the LizardFeeder feedback bug or sending mail to dbottoms at mozilla dot com. We’ll cull through your submissions between now and February 20, and reach out to those individuals or design teams who exhibit the creativity, originality and passion to take their ideas to fruition. We’ll then collaborate on building your visualization using the tools and technologies of the open web.

For more details behind this project, head over to my blog, or see one of the early prototypes posted on John Slater’s blog.

Editor’s note: Mozilla announced the release of Ubiquity 0.1.5 on Wednesday, January 14, 2009.  See Mozilla Labs User Experience Lead Aza Raskin’s comprehensive post on the Mozilla Labs blog, excerpted here:

We are proud to announce Ubiquity 0.1.5. Since the last major update, Ubiquity has gained a sleeker look and a smarter, more stable core. Ubiquity has also gained the ability to be skinned: anyone who knows how to write standards-complaint CSS can now create and share a custom Ubiquity skin.

• Beautiful: Ubiquity has a new look that increases its visual simplicity and lays the groundwork for full keyboard access.
• Skinnable: Anyone can now give Ubiquity a new look. It’s as simple as a little bit of CSS. That’s how the new look was created! Once you’ve created a skin, it’s easy to share it with the world: you can subscribe to skins just like you can subscribe to commands.
• Speed: Ubiquity is now much snappier.
• Stability: This is the most reliable Ubiquity yet, with much of its internals refactored.
• Relevancy: Ubiquity now makes it easier to issue the commands you want. It remembers the commands you use — using the same technology that powers the Awesome Bar — as well as matching anywhere in a command name.

For more information, check out the Ubiquity home page and Ubiquity news. Also keep an eye out for Ubiquity 0.2, expected to be released in the near future.

Editor’s note: Mozilla announced the release of Snowl 0.2 on Monday, January 12, 2009.  See Myk Melez’s comprehensive post on the Mozilla Labs blog, excerpted here:

We’re pleased to announce Snowl 0.2.  This version of the messaging-in-the-browser experiment builds on the first release with an updated river view, a new stream view for keeping track of messages in a sidebar while you do other things, the ability to send tweets, and support for multiple Twitter accounts.

Everyone is welcome to participate! Learn more about Snowl on its project page and share what you think by posting in the discussion forum. Let us know your thoughts on what Snowl should do next!

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you are a frequent user of the Internet. To you, it’s no secret Mozilla Firefox 3 is faster and safer, you are well aware you can personalize your experience with Firefox Add-ons and even experience the future of Web browsing with Ubiquity. But how about your friends? Family? You may have convinced them to begin using Firefox ages ago, but have they updated to the latest version Firefox 3 yet?

As the festive time comes to a close, and we turn our focus to the New Year, you’ve probably already put some thought into your New Year’s resolutions. Whatever you want to achieve, it’s likely to mark a fresh start for 2009. It’s all about enriching your life, but what about considering something a little closer to home? Upgrading your browser software is the best way to enjoy new features and to stay safe online. Help those around you to enjoy a safe and fun online year 2009. Simply ask them to go to http://getfirefox.com , and download the latest version of Firefox. It is as simple as that!

Thanks for using Firefox, and wish you a Happy New Year!