Myside's Spew

Firefox Now Does a Rapid Release (Backport) on Ubuntu

myside — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:42:56 -0600

This morning I noticed APT had a new version of Firefox waiting to be updated. Firefox 9.0.1 was a welcomed update for my 10.04 LTS Xubuntu installation. Ubuntu will now be releasing the browser upgrades as Mozilla rolls out it's web browser application with the next generation of Internet technology, such as enhanced HTML5 support, and security enhancements.

"The upstream Mozilla Firefox web browser has moved to a rapid release cycle. New Firefox versions are being released every six weeks and contain new features and security enhancements. Until now, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Ubuntu 10.10 have been getting 3.6 point releases of Firefox. As such, users have not been benefiting from new features, support for new web technologies, security enhancements, and performance improvements. Firefox 3.6 will be reaching its end of life soon, so we need to migrate users to rapid release so that they will continue to receive security updates in a timely fashion."

The roll-out was announced to start January 17th, though I thought from the start it was to be the 27th - and it turned out to be so, for me. Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Ubuntu 10.10 installations are now on a rapid release cycle as is the latest Ubuntu distribution sets available. I am sure it is relieving a lot of stress now not having to patch Firefox 3.6 as security issues arise, as this is the default and once permanent version of these older maintained Ubuntu distribution sets.

APT repository add-ons for the previous Ubuntu Firefox branded version will be migrated to the new Firefox version through Mozilla's add-on service, addons.mozilla.org.

Kwik Trip Coffee

myside — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:52:37 -0600

Kwik Trip is predominantly a Wisconsin and Minnesota convenience store and gas station. It is king of gas in my area and once the king-quick-stop for morning coffee.

Up until about 3 years ago Kwik Trip brewed a fine roast of well tasting caffeine filled coffee to kick-start the morning. Out of no where the company decided to package and re-sell their meagerly roasted blends in ground and whole bean packages called Cafe Karuba Coffee. Around this time is when the grounds went stale.

From what I can see, the employees are now forbidden to put any love into our cup of Joe. Coffee grounds are grounded exact as well as brew baskets swelled to the bottoms of hell where brewing only turns the color of the water into a hazy brown. Kwik Trip is no Cafe, even in Karuba, a village in Nord-Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

It took a good year before I gave up completely drinking Kwik Trip Coffee, now opting to buy a half of a pound of Folgers at the same establishment for a justified 68 cents more. Woe is an actual refill of a cup of Kwik Trip Java - especially with these fine establishments selling quality cups of coffee on the go: coffee shops near La Crosse, Wisconsin

Are you ready for SOPA? - January 18th!

myside — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 16:38:38 -0600

The Stop On-line Piracy Act (SOPA) is in a full forced backlash from Internet giants such as WikipediA and our beloved BoingBoing whom are participating in the SOPA Strike, a 12 hour period in which volunteer domain owners will turn the electric off to their sites. The SOPA Strike page link above provides several parked pages to point your domains to among information on how to contact your congressional representatives to voice your opinion.

"January 18th is going to be amazing. Sites are striking in all different ways, but they are united by this: do the biggest thing you possibly can, and drive contacts to Congress. Put this on your site or automate it by putting this JS into your header (the Javascript link is available @ http://sopastrike.com/), which will start the blackout at 8AM EST and end at 8PM EST." - http://sopastrike.com/

The SOPA Strike website contains a list of validated participants along with a list of unfiltered participants of the Internet Blackout. I will not be participating in the blackout, however I wish to make this unfetchable downfall of our existence on the Internet - to be voted on by Congress January 24th (SOPA), and PIPA which is currently in discussion in the Senate, stop DEAD with help from those that this post may help. Also see: Internet Blacklist for a video and in depth information in relation to SOPA and PIPA.

"On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass Internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need Internet companies to follow Reddit's lead and stand up for the web, as we Internet users are doing every day." - http://sopastrike.com/

Here is a small list of 3rd party templates and the official sopastrike.com web page and Javascript code available and ready to use during the protest tomorrow:

Black out your website for 12 hours with this page's HTML, or by putting this Javascript into your site's theme (the Javascript link is available @ http://sopastrike.com/). Tucows is doing this and so is BoingBoing.
Other people have made tools to strike. Some other ways to strike:
- Zachary Johnson's blackout page
- ProtestSOPA.org
- CloudFlare's Stop Censorship app
- SOPA Strike Wordpress Plugin
- Did you make something? Tweet it to #StrikeTools