Editor’s note: Today, Mozilla released the Firefox for Maemo Release Candidate. Check out Director of Mobile, Stuart  Parmenter’s blog post reposted below.

It has come to our attention that there are reports on the popular Thai forum Blognone, มีบริษัทไหน โดนคนจาก Mozilla โทรข้ามประเทศมาเช็คยอดคนใช้ Firefox บ้างไหมครับ, and from Mr. Paiboon’s blog เมื่อมีฝรั่งแปลกหน้าโทรเข้า ออฟฟิศของผม !!, of someone called ‘Edison’ calling Internet businesses in Thailand and using the Mozilla Foundation name. These callers are asking about how many computers in the company are using Mozilla Firefox and are connected to the Internet. Mozilla has no representatives named Edison and no representatives in Thailand doing any telephone-based market surveys. If you receive a phone call from a ‘representative of the Mozilla Foundation’ they are not a representative of Mozilla Corporation or the Mozilla Foundation.

Mozilla has done web-based surveys from the Mozilla website and other websites and does market research via email, but not via phone in Thailand. If you receive a phone call in Thailand from someone saying that they are from Mozilla, please do not provide any information and take their name and number and send it to press at mozilla dot com for confirmation.

Thank you very much for your support of Mozilla and Firefox in Thailand.

We have good news for late holiday shoppers in Europe (or, really, anyone on that side of the Atlantic who’s looking to get some Firefox gear this winter): our UK-based Mozilla Store is offering a series of “packs” that bundle items together at a discounted rate.

If that sounds intriguing, definitely head over to the European Store and check them out:
* The Workout Pack
* The Champions Pack
* The Portable Pack
* The Office Pack
* The Good Morning Pack
* The Rainy Day Pack

Editor’s note: Today, Mozilla released 3.6 beta (revision 5) early this morning. Check out the Mozilla Developer News announcement reposted below.

At Mozilla we foster a healthy ecosystem of communities that promote the ability to freely access, modify and distribute software and creative works. These ecosystems create a digital commons; a shared space, shared resources or network of ideas, applications and products that are free to use.

Much like a park is a vital ecosystem for collaboration, recreation, conservation and commerce, the values of park ring very true within the open source software moment. Take a look back at Firefox release history and you’ll see that previous versions of have been named after parks like Gran Paradiso (Italy), Bon Echo (Canada) and Shiretoko (Japan). Mozilla community members in Japan were so honoured to have Firefox 3.5 code-named after their UNSECO world heritage site park, Shiretoko, that they created Discover Shiretoko to celebrate the park as an important part of their national heritage and to celebrate Firefox and its role in creating a better Internet.

There is a story here to be told about the history of Mozilla and of Firefox and at the same time, we have an opportunity to use the shared values we have with these parks to do some good.

The newest pre-release code name for Firefox is Namoroka, named for a park in the northwest section of Madagascar. Famous for its Karst topography (or Tsingy as it is described in Malagasy), Namoroka is full of caves, canyons and natural swimming pools. Namoroka is also home to eight species of adorable lemur.

Since we’re very fond of things tailed and furry at Mozilla, we’ve decided to celebrate the release of Firefox 3.6 by raising money to protect lemurs in Namoroka park and throughout Madagascar.  As a nation Madagascar is struggling to improve the quality of life for its rapidly growing human population and at the same time is struggling to find a way to preserve the forests and wildlife that remains.

To help, Mozilla is teaming up with the Madagascar Fauna Group (MFG) to help Madagascar through this challenging time. The MFG has been working on conservation in Madagascar for more than 20 years, addressing the environmental and social issues that are leading to deforestation and the trapping of lemurs.

The money we raise for this project will be used to help the MFG improve its website and online fundraising activities, connecting them with like-minded contributors and donors around the world. This donation will also support conservation and education programs on the island. By enhancing their presence within the web ecosystem, we can help them protect the natural ecosystem of Madagascar.

How can you help?

• Donate! We’re hoping to raise $10,000 to give to the Madagascar Fauna Group to help them improve their website and online fundraising, as well as support programs for protecting lemur habitats and stopping illegal lemur trapping.

• Spread the word! Get your own Support Namoroka button and put it on your blog or website, tweet it and sing it from the rooftops and street corners while you’re at it.

We’ll be raising funds until the end of January 2010. More updates to come!  Many thanks to Ned Schwartz, Chelsea Novak, Brain Warren, Jamey Boje and David Boswell for making this happen.

Editor’s note: The Labs team at Mozilla released Personas 2.0 early this morning. Check out the Mozilla Labs announcement reposted below.

Personas 2.0 offers a cleaner look, clearer navigation, and easier ways to discover and engage new art. Check out the new site here.

The Mozilla Labs team launched Personas 1.0 in March with the idea that it shouldn’t be hard to make your internet browser more fun and personal. Over the past eight months, with your feedback and support, we iterated on the Personas experience fifteen times (10 times on the website, 5 times on the extension) and are now pleased to introduce Personas 2.0.

Here is a screencast by Ryan Doherty, who led development work on the redesign:

Introducing Personas 2.0 from Mozilla Labs on Vimeo.

What’s New?

1. Enhanced look: Thanks to the creative vision and guidance of Chris Howse, the site now has a cleaner look and feel, and also customizes an experience based on whether you are currently using the Personas add-on. The site also suggests more you might enjoy based on what you choose to wear.

2. New features: With your feedback and support, we integrated features like search, and favorites. We also added features to the Personas add-on itself to make it easier for you to discover and manage your persona designs directly from the little fox in the lower left corner of your browser chrome. (see 1.4 announcement and video).

3. More designs: Personas 1.0 launched with less than 150 designs. Thanks to a growing community of contributors and artists, the Personas gallery will likely welcome its 40,000th design by the end of this year. The gallery also includes affinity art from Harry Potter, Vans, Bob Marley, Lilly Pulitzer, and Greenpeace.

4. Easier discovery: To let you discover new artists and designs, we sorted the Personas gallery by “up and coming” designs. This allows you to quickly view personas designs that are gaining popularity in the Personas community. You can also easily switch your view to sort by “popular” or “just added”.

5. Localization underway: the localization and web development teams have worked to make the site localizeable. If you want to join the effort, you can do so here. Thanks to our community of volunteers, many localization efforts are underway, with some nearly complete.

Thanks!

Like all Mozilla projects, Personas is a collaboration between people who develop the product and people who use it. The following people (and many more) have been commited to this product’s success:

• NinaBella, Digital Blasphemy, MaDonna, and thousands of other artists around the globe that give millions of Firefox browsers a personalized look and feel. They are the heroes of this project.
• Shae Rivard, who has supported the resolution of over 250 issues on the Personas discussion forum, as well as over 500 other members, whose feedback, testing, and contributions continuously make the product better.
• Chris Howse for developing a creative vision for the Personas 2.0 site, and Ryan Doherty for implementing and for developing the screencast above.
• Myk Melez, Toby Elliot, and Zandr Milewski, with the support of Erik van Eykelen, and Jose Bolanos, for collaborating with community feedback to constantly improve on the product. Collaboratively, the development team has fixed over 300 issues since launch.
• Carsten Book (a.k.a. Tomcat), Stephen Donner, Tony Chung, Krupa Raj, and Vishal Kamdar, for assuring quality releases, and for doing so within incredibly tight deadlines.
• Amy Zehren, Sean Martell, Catherine Brady, and Julie Martin, with the support of Monique Johnson, who have reached out to countless brands around the globe to share the Mozilla story, and offer them the opportunity to participate in a growing movement.
• Tara Shahian, Mary Colvig, Melissa Shapiro, John Slater, Sarah Doherty, Jay Patel, and all the other members of the marketing community that helped build awareness around Personas.
• Seth Bindernagel, Staś Małolepszy, Pascal Chevrel, and all the Persona localizers on Babelzilla (AtteL, dogi, drry, Ersen Yoldac, fernph, Funkin2x, funTomas, Joergen, jojaba, jooliaan, kkemenczy, kustodian, Lisman, lois, loveleeyoungae, moZes, pia, SiiiE, spjutster, steekid, stoyan, Wareczek, and wtspout), who worked diligently to ensure that Personas is accessible in as many languages as possible.


What’s Next?

As Personas crosses 10.5 million downloads and prepares to welcome its 40,000th community design, we will continue make the product even better and easier to use. To continue to evolve Personas quickly, and in the right direction, we need your feedback and participation. Join the conversation in the discussion forum and add helpful hints to the support wiki. And stay tuned to this blog for updates!

- Ryan Doherty and Suneel Gupta on behalf of the Personas development team