What is Raindrop?

“Raindrop uses a mini web server to fetch your conversations from different sources (mail, twitter, RSS feeds), intelligently pulls out the important parts, and allows you to interact with them using your favorite modern web browser (Firefox, Safari or Chrome).”

Who built Raindrop?

“Raindrop is a new exploration by the team responsible for Thunderbird to explore new ways to use open Web technologies to create useful, compelling messaging experiences.”

You can read more about Raindrop here, and wiki details along with the weekly call info are at Mozilla Wiki.

More information can be found at :

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:QA_TestDay:2009-10-15

See you there!

• Support about:weave.
• Fix up ViewAbout’s JavaScript code to pass security validation.
• Re-enable about:neterror for those who love it for complete-ness’ sake.
• Add support up to Firefox 3.7a1pre.

I’m continuing to receive reports that about:jetpack, about:accessibilityenabled, about:icecream and about:me (all extension-related) should all be added as well. They should be in the next version.

Meanwhile, please feel free to send me mail about other about: pages.

One can get ViewAbout 1.5 from Mozilla Add-ons.

• Now supports Instantbird 0.2 and up. You can get it from Instantbird Add-ons. Thanks Nils Maier!
• Tidied up contributors section.
• Fixed up nit in 1.4.1, which wasn’t really publicly available for long.

There’s also contributions waiting in line to (hopefully) port ViewAbout to Mozilla Prism, so stay tuned! I warmly welcome all improvements to ViewAbout as well.

One can get ViewAbout 1.4.2 from AMO.

That’s not to say we are about to go bug-free soon, but the graph at Bugzilla does indeed show some reductions during the summers of 2008 and 2009. Note the summer of 2008 was mostly an effort of cleaning out old and forgotten bugs, which explains the much steeper decline than the summer of 2009 thus far.

Note the red UNCOnfirmed bug number line:

Many kudos go out to the hard work of all Thunderbird triagers, they are starting to increase so much that it is getting harder to track by the names, which can only mean good news.

If you are willing to help maintain the charge and possibly even push the numbers down even lower (bug triage FAQ), do feel free to pop by our bugdays. Our upcoming one (in less than 24 hours) is already scheduled and you can always make use of the web interface chat at chat.mozillamessaging.com to ask questions or clear any doubts.

Join us in the effort to keep the UNCO numbers low! A list of suggested queries is also available here.

No kidding, I saw a model Thunderbird 2 for sale here in Hong Kong.

Would anyone like one, while stocks last?

I primarily covered the following topics through live demonstration:

• What’s new in the upcoming releases Firefox 3.5 and Thunderbird 3
• QA process in Bugzilla – triage through review and checkin. Bug lifecycle.
• Test infrastructure – mochitests, xpcshell tests, crash tests, reftests, Mozmill tests

Because I had an hour slot, I didn’t have time to cover the Tinderbox waterfall, Litmus, and some other things I wanted to cover (perf tests, Talos, etc.).

It was my first time speaking to seasoned engineers (some IBM folks as well, I think) and I was glad I could share my experience with them. I had given talks (so far numbering four in total) to undergraduates, graduates, and professors (spanning from schools in Singapore / Hong Kong and now a company) but it was really special conversing with engineers because they knew what they wanted to know, and I also had quite a fair share of interesting / challenging questions. They seemed particularly interested in Mozmill testing (Mozmill folks, reading this?) especially with regards to testing web applications. In hindsight, I really should have demonstrated my Bugzilla Mozmill test. Anyone remembered “Gristmill in Action“?

In particular, I was told that my HOWTO find a manual regression window blogpost was particularly useful. (Drop me a quick email if any of my posts are interesting, OK? My email is nth10sd at gmail d0t com )

I hope to be able to share more of my experiences in the future, as it both enables my audience to learn more and myself to give better speeches in the future. Having made some great friends (Yusuf, Sultan, Milan, and some others I forgot to mention), I am glad I was able to share my knowledge with you guys – I learnt a lot too, I’m sure this help me improve over the next two years before I graduate (I’m still an undergraduate, and [im]patiently waiting for time to fly by).

Thank you, Outblaze! I’m sure we’ll meet again.

So due to the misplacement of an early-gen MacBook Pro in Hong Kong some months ago by the owner, I ended up with it, and am trying to return to its owner(s). Here’s what I did next:

I called Apple US and initially they couldn’t help, because I had to give a serial number of the computer. The MBP had its serial number stickers at the back (it’s an early MBP) ripped off, the condition looked bad, many dents / cracks in the casing, virtually unusable ExpressCard slot, MBP looked like it was thrown, it wouldn’t boot due to a blinking power light. Number (which I thought was the S/N) pasted on the RAM modules wasn’t the MBP’s serial number. First call cut off due to bad connection.

I googled about a blinking power light – turns out to be poorly inserted RAM. Re-inserted and fixed. MBP boots. Hard drive starts clicking. Not good. Folder with question mark appears.

Having some vague experience with USB Linux boot disks, I tried SLAX or something – needed to install rEFLT which wasn’t really possible on a non-working clicking hard drive, to try to boot to a desktop to run some form of diagnostics. Gave up.

Tried another route. I booted the MBP using a restore CD from another computer which was a different model. Boots successfully from CD, then message appears about Computer not being supported. Wow. Seemed expected anyway.

Clicked OK, but I didn’t immediately restart. I could actually run System Profiler, then managed to get the Serial Number off it. Second call to Apple US, leaving the details there. This time, the Serial Number was valid.

Hopefully, the owner will contact me (Don’t bother if you aren’t; I’ve details to verify.) In the meantime,

please take good care of your MacBook Pro (or other laptop/notebook/netbook computer) and not misplace it.

Look at where the minute-hand is pointing:

Close-up: