Firefox 4 Updates, and our far too interesting times.
March 22nd, 2011 by sethRegarding the Firefox 4 updates:
We’re still waiting for Mozilla to do their code review on new versions of Lazarus and Interclue, which is why you haven’t been automatically updated to them yet. Understandably Mozilla’s add-on editors a bit backlogged as a result of the long awaited final release of Firefox 4, but we’re hoping that Lazarus at least will be approved shortly, we uploaded the last version a week ago after addressing some issues they found with it initially. Meanwhile, you can download the latest, Firefox 4 compatible version of Interclue, and the latest, Firefox 4 compatible version of Lazarus from our site, which will require confirming that it’s ok to update from our site, and some of you might also be interested in our Lazarus 3.0 beta releases for Firefox, Chrome and Safari.
Regarding our far too interesting times:
I’m very sorry about the long delay since the last Interclue update. It’s a long story. Firstly, mea culpa. Despite having something approaching a plan early last year, I wasn’t able to push through on the execution side, and instead we got bogged down doing contracting work, working on Lazarus, and we even had a brief punt at a Safari add-on, Ultimate Status Bar, which was both fun and frustrating in more or less equal parts.
Then, later on in the year, we had a colossal earthquake, magnitude 7.1, followed by several thousand aftershocks - causing all sorts of distraction for us and everyone else in our home town. Amazingly, nobody died.
Meanwhile, for me personally, being highly interested in democracy, human rights, and how people can best achieve and maintain such things, the last year has been insanely interesting, even without considering the natural disasters. Just for instance, consider the hung parliament in the UK, the ongoing Wikileaks saga, Iran’s aborted revolution, Egypt’s successful one, Libya’s ongoing one, and our own, entirely minor, authoritarian takeover in Canterbury back in June, which actually seemed like a big deal at the time, at least from the perspective of someone who lived there.
Meanwhile, my awareness that I’ve been well behind on sorting out the short, medium and long term plans for Interclue, Lazarus, and a few other projects to boot, along with all the various other distractions, has largely prevented me from making much comment on all this (see here for one notable exception), let alone making any serious attempts at trying to help[1], and thus I firmly believe I would have managed to get a huge pile of stuff sorted in the last month, including the Firefox 4 releases, except that, just a few days after I wrote this post on my personal blog…
…we had a massive 6.3 aftershock, this one more or less right on top of us, which actually destroyed many parts of the city. You might even have seen some of it on TV. Arguably, we were somewhat lucky to survive it - 123 others, and their families, were not so fortunate. We lost our office in town, Karl’s kids lost their school, their neighborhood is still a bit of a mess, and I have decamped to Wellington, which is something I’d actually been thinking about for a while - but I’d been planning to wait until we’d released Lazarus Pro, the company was profitable, our distributed workflow was up to scratch, and we’d made all the appropriate financial structure changes to allow for further growth and investment, before doing so. The Earthquake made all of that vastly less relevant, so here I am, enjoying the Wellington hospitality, meeting new friends, catching up with old ones, and feeling guilty for not (a) doing more to help Christchurch in its time of need, nor (b) sorting out the vast number of Interclue things that still need sorting out.
Hope to update you soon with more progress on (b), and hopefully I can help out with (a) as well. In general it’s been wonderful to see how New Zealand[2], has rallied around Christchurch and made it clear we’re all in this together.
[1] I do have a few ideas, but they’re half-baked at best. Hoping to have a crack at the them later this year.
[2] …and to some extent, the world, at least prior to the vastly more devastating events in Japan, which make our own problems seem pretty minor by comparison. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make them go away :-/
March 22nd, 2011 at 9:58 am
Seth…
Speaking for all of us users and friends of yours, thank you for the Update of 22 March 2011
Absolutely first and foremost, we are happy that you, your family and the rest of what we know as “Interclue and Lazarus HQ” are healthy, safe — even though in a new locale for you.
Thank you also for being intrepid and fighting though what was a wild year, adversity-inducing earth movements included.
Thank you for versions of the great (and yes, it is !) Interclue 1.6.2. Note that the results page URL says:
http://interclue.com/onupdate.html?ver=1.6.2
and it still opens to the text that starts off:
“Thanks for Installing Interclue 1.6.1.3
The only significant change in this point release is support for Firefox 3.6, which required us to rewrite the Clueviewer positioning logic.
…..”
We know that the results page will eventually track with 1.6.2…:)….
What can we all do to help you and the team succeed better ? You all have done a lot for your fellow Firefox users, so we should be able to do what we can to help you all.
BTW, can you all get onto Skype ? It would seem like a positive for family, business and staying in touch ?
Warmest regards,
Joe Rotello / Founder / WindowGroup
Knoxville, TN / USA
Skype: joerotello
March 25th, 2011 at 7:06 am
I am happy that you all are safe.
Earthquakes are pretty unnerving events. I survived living on top of the epicenter of the Northridge earthquake in 1994. At first they said it was an 8.6, but quickly downgraded it to a 6.8. I watched as my University burned. I finished my BA degree sitting on the ground outside and later in temporary trailers that final semester. I attended as Al Gore, Vice President at the time, gave a speech about how brave we were to come back after this tragedy to get our education and dubbed us “Earthquake Graduates”.
My thoughts to you and yours as you put your town and lives back together. Whoever said life was easy? =D
Blessings,
Alanna
March 29th, 2011 at 2:00 am
Sorry for the earthquake (been through one in Kazakhstan), thanks for Lazarus (helps rarely but very well), and you might also be interested to know that *democracy, socialism and anarchy share the same origin*.
We in Russia know it quite well — e.g. Fyodor Dostoevsky in his “Besy” (”Devils”) novel cast a mighty light beam upon those who are behind that, and postponed the damned “revolution” by several years with his pen alone.
March 31st, 2011 at 9:57 am
I had no idea y’all were in New Zealand. Our family is glad that y’all made it through OK and our prayers are with y’all and all residents of your country, as we are sure some didn’t fare so well. It seems that the Red Cross has become just another monthly bill, as the world seems to be going through a huge upheaval. Again, all disaster victims are getting the best we can give as our country is a generous one and we hope the Red Cross has improved their logistics and is doing a better job than they did when we were attacked ten years ago. Anyway, our prayers are with all of East Asia as nature has not been good to you and your neighbors.
April 5th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
I’m glad that you guys are back, safe and sound. I love your add-ons, especially Lazarus for Firefox which has been a life saver a trillion times, and I didn’t think it would ever come back in FF4. Well my prayers have been answered. Keep up the good work!
May 12th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
i had no idea you were in NZ - now that i do know, i’m so glad that you and yours are all right! Lazarus is one of my favorite add-ons. thank you so much for creating and updating it, and best of luck.
May 13th, 2011 at 2:01 am
I am very sorry for all you have been through down in N.Z. Glad you and your workers are safe. I appreciate Interclue and Lazurus very much, and am happy for updates, whenever they happen. Keep up the GREAT work!