The Chris Gonyea Project

We will never forget. R.I.P. all of those who died that horrible day that for oh so brief period of time brought out the best of America.

Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 was released earlier this week and I downloaded it within hours of its release. I must say, this is a much improved web browser for a number of reasons.

1. This thing cruises. Back/Forward buttons are instantaneous. Page rendering is much quicker, even by Firefox’s fast standards to begin with. Startup even seems a tad faster. Overall, much improved in the speed department.
2. The little fixes to the UI continues to be one of the stellar parts of what makes Firefox so great. The UI got some tweaks to look much better in Windows XP. The RSS icon now appears on the address bar. The Options dialog is completely redesigned and makes much more sense now.
3. Updating Firefox should be much easier and more reliable now. So far there hasn’t been any updated extensions or Firefox patches that I need to get, so I haven’t tested it. Supposedly the notification of an update is much more noticeable now. This has always been one of my biggest issues with any software program in general, not just Firefox, so I can’t wait to see if Firefox got it right.

The only issue I have with Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 (man is this stable or what, I don’t even have any bugs to report) is the fact that the LiveLines extension does not work. Hopefully an update will be released soon.

Overall…if this is any indication, Firefox 1.5 is going to be a great improvement over Firefox 1.0…and that is saying a lot given how good 1.0 was.

This is why the iPod is so successful. Sure the ease-of-use with iTunes, iTMS, and the iPod have a huge part in it. However, the real reason is developers and all of those 3rd-party accessories.

Until the imitators get it, the iPod will rule for good reason.

The Times-Picayune and Nola.com have been reporting from day one about Katrina, even after having to abandon their offices and printed paper to work exclusively online. These reporters and their staff have been absolutely stellar and deserve every journalistic award out there for what they have gone through to report the news coming out of New Orleans.

They should definitely get a Pulitzer for their efforts. Best reporting of an event I have seen in a long time and to do it under those conditions…absolutely spectacular.

If things don’t improve and those people don’t get out of New Orleans by Sunday, this will be the biggest screwup in U.S. history.

I can’t believe it has taken 4-5 days just to get national guard to the convention center.

Some leadership this country has.