Firefox 1.5.0.9 and 2.0.0.1 (and Thunderbird 1.5.0.9) have been released. All include security fixes. But why are Firefox 1.5.0.8 users being offered 1.5.0.9? "If you already have Firefox 1.5.x, you will receive an offer to upgrade to Firefox 2.0 over the next several weeks", we were told almost two months ago. Yes, we can manually install 2.0; but where's the automated 2.0 upgrade for our less technical friends?

The order I made on December 12 will probably arrive at its destination (my nephews' house) in time for Christmas.

The order I made on December 13 will not arrive until December 24 at the earliest. (Which is a problem, because it's being shipped to my office, which is closed on Christmas Eve.)

"Difficulties at the warehouse," they say. "Cancel my order and I'll take my chances at the brick-and-mortar store," I reply.

Geez.

Okay, I'm going wireless at home. I really, really want wireless 'net access for my work laptop when I bring it home. It'd be nice for the family laptop, too. Someday I may even make it easier for the Tivo to call home (far easier than running an Ethernet cable from the cable modem to that part of the house).

The question is, should I buy 802.11b gear, or "invest in the future" and go with 802.11g? "g" is faster than "b", but even "b" is faster than my cable modem. I'm not running servers or anything interesting on the home LAN.

Thoughts? Experience?

Do not go to someone with a master's degree and twenty years of industry experience, and say, "Gosh, I'm sorry you lost your job, but we've got a heck of a good retraining program at the local community college."

... is here.

http://factcheck.org/ is a non-partisan (i.e., they attack attack ads from both sides) web site run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. You'll find Republican-funded Group Attacks Kerry's War Record pretty much right next to Kerry's Dubious Economics.

Worth checking out.

http://www.agitar.com/news/000058.html: "Agitar Software, the leader in developer testing for the enterprise, today announced that Kent Beck has become an Agitar Software Fellow."

A huge proponent of test-driven development (write the test, and only then write the code) is joining a company that develops "enterprise level" (read: expensive) tools to produce tests from existing code, and to measure code coverage of tests? Am I missing something here?

Problem: The Locate Link Browser Dialog Box Appears When You Open a Web Link in an E-mail Message.

Solution: described here.

I haven't tried this yet.

I was paying my credit card bill online, and my credit card company warned me I might not be able to do so if I was using the latest version of Internet Explorer with a recent patch. They pointed me to here:

You may not be able to log on to a Web site or complete an Internet transaction after you install the 832894 (MS04-004) security update. For example, when you submit your user name and password to an SSL-secured Web site by using a form on a HTTPS Web page, you may receive an HTTP 500 (Internal Server Error) Web page....

This problem may occur after you apply the 832894 security update (MS04-004) or the 821814 hotfix on a computer that runs Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows 98....

The 832894 security update (MS04-004) and the 821814 hotfix change how the Internet extensions for Windows (Wininet.dll) retries POST requests when a Web server resets the connection. Programs that use Windows Internet (Wininet) application programming interface (API) functions to post data (such as a user name or a password) to a Web server retry the POST request without including the POST data if the Web server closes (or resets) the initial connection request.

Note A POST request does not include POST data if its content length is set to 0 or is empty.

Sometimes, this behavior prevents another reset and permits authentication to complete. However, you may receive an HTTP 500 (Internal server error) Web page if the Web server must have the POST data included when Wininet retries the POST request.

Mind you, I was running Firefox when I saw this message, but I really, really look forward to explaining this to my mother.

If I win the lottery, the first thing I'm doing is buying a Mac for every member of my family.

I was moderating the latest front page poll, and found this (moderated as informative) entry. Follow the link, and you'll get to a site that has all sorts of real and imaginary objects, each page set to some scale for comparison purposes: 747, B5, DS9, and some of the space stations designed by Gerard O'Neill and those who worked with him. Cool stuff all around. Thanks, GQuon!