I continue to fight a cold and have not been able to get enough sleep recently, so I’m pretty grumpy. On top of this, there is a long list of tasks that keep getting put off, causing the list to get longer, including several blog posts I need to write. So, I will combine a few of them into this post, and then, when and if time permits, expand upon them.

Firefox 3

Today is Firefox 3 day. Starting at 1 PM EDT, people will be able to download the official version of Firefox 3. I downloaded the final release candidate and have run it a little bit. So far, there isn’t much that I’ve seen as improvements. The one feature that I like best is a ‘most viewed’ tab. Things I don’t like: You need to be running at least Windows 2000. It won’t run on my main machine which is still Windows NT. Yeah, I know, I should upgrade, but Windows NT has been good enough for me for years.

Things I’m trying to get used to: With Firefox 2, you have these little arrows next to your back and forward buttons so you can skip back, or forward, several pages. In Firefox 3, they’ve combined this into one button. There is a little circle next to the page showing where you are. A little more compressed; mixed feelings about it. Likewise, the dropdown list of recently visited sites is now split onto two lines; the title on the top and the link below it. I’m still used to the old way of displaying the list with the URL on the left and the title on the right. I prefer the older format. Perhaps there is a way of tweaking Firefox 3 to look more like Firefox 2.

Associated Press

Recently, the Associated Press sent takedown orders to a blog for quoting brief passages of AP articles. They requested the removal of six blog posts and one comment for quoting passages from AP stories ranging from 33 to 79 words. At the core of this is a battle over what constitutes Fair Use. The AP positions borders on asserting that no use of AP content is fair. First off, this is really stupid on the APs part. They should be encouraging people to link to their content. Instead, they have discouraged people from linking to their content. The UnAssociated Press is calling for a boycott of all AP stories. People are urging others to stop Digging article from the Associated Press and any other activities that might drive traffic to AP stories. Major hat tip to Liza Sabater for her coverage of this at Culture Kitchen. For more information on this, start off with Netroots' bloggers boycott of Associated Press is working.

EntreCard

In a similarly stupid move, EntreCard is asking bloggers to write for them, offering between 700 and 2000 EntreCard credits for reviews of other blogs. Depending on how much they actually pay, and the exchange rate of EntreCard credits, that works out to be between around $2.50 to $15 per blog post. For bloggers that do most of their writing for free, that is a major improvement, and is near the low end of the range that people get paid for writing articles about Second Life. Yet EntreCard, unlike other sites, will not permit republishing of the article on the writers own blog. They express concern about Google not liking duplicate content.

My understanding is that Google doesn’t like the same content with hundreds of links repeated over hundreds of websites in an effort to boost page rank, and that an article reposted on another site or two isn’t what Google is penalizing. If people can come up with details about Google penalizing a site for regular cross posting, please let me know.

Second Life

As a segue from grumpy to hopeful, let me comment on the Second Life birthday celebration. It starts June 23rd. There was a lot of stuff floating around about how the birthday celebration would not allow adults whose avatars are in the shape of children from participating. Linden Lab changed its position and Dusan Writer wrote a post entitled Linden Regroups and the Kids Are In. I had really wanted to write a detailed post about this, but time has slipped away. Perhaps I can write a post about the celebration.

More Second Life

The Network Culture Project at USC’s Annenberg School for Communications has a different approach to promoting community involvement in Second Life. They are having a Community Challenge contest. They have announced five finalists, with voting through the 30th. My first choice is clearly The Ability Commons. I am good friends with the folks behind The Ability Commons and hold their work in the highest regard. I haven’t voted yet, because I need to look more closely at the other finalists to determine my second and third choices. If you are in Second Life, please check out this project and the five finalists and then enter your vote.

Serena

As a final more hopeful post, I want to highligh Help Save Serena. I mentioned the effort in passing in my wandering around EntreCard sites on Bloomsday, but I didn’t have the link to the Help Save Serena blog.

There are plenty of other things that I need to write about, but I have too many other non-writing tasks to accomplish, so this will have to suffice for right now.