2008 – The Mozilla foundation made an interesting statement – They want to be in the Guinness book of world records as the most downloaded browser with Firefox 3.0. Download day was June 17th. After a problematic start, they hit their record over 8 million. Enough to make the Guinness book of World Records.Mozilla broke off of Netscape and created Firefox on November 9, 2004. Mozilla is currently the #3 browser, behind Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Mozilla 12 is the current revision. Firefox uses the Gecko engine, and is open source, so it can be customized. It can be downloaded at Mozilla.org, and also comes included in certain Linux distributions.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 30
May 29, 2002: Netflix initiated Public Offering at $15/share
2002– Netflix, the rental movie-by-mail service, initiated their Public offering. They sold 5,500,000 starting at $15 a share. They sold an additional 825,000 the next day. Of course, the Netflix stock has fluctuated over the years, including 2011, when CEO Reed Hastings tried to split their online and DVD rentals, then announced Qwikster – with hopes to sell that side of the company. Of course, he retracted that statement, but not before loosing 2/3 of stock price (was at $291 in 2011, now at $70 / share).
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 29
1987 – Compuserve releases the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) standard. Using 256 colors, it could greatly reduce pictures for the web. Photos in the GIF format would look pixelated and posturized, though.
“‘GIF’ ™ is CompuServe’s standard for defining generalized color raster images. This ‘Graphics Interchange Format’ ™ allows high-quality, high-resolution graphics to be displayed on a variety of graphics hardware and is intended as an exchange and display mechanism for graphics images. The image format described in this document is designed to support current and future image technology and will in addition serve as a basis for future CompuServe graphics products.” – From the Official text of GIF standard.
GIF files are used to this day, mostly for animation purposes. Google Chrome, for example, allows you to post animated gif files, which brought a flood of “Google over Facebook” shorts.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 28
2003 – Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a Fork of B2/cafelog. From there, WordPress was born. Since its release, WordPress has taken over Content Management Systems (CMS) with its ease of use and plethora of programmers that have made plugins, themes and other tweaks to the system since. The current version is 3.5.1 which has been downloaded over 18 million times.
Microsoft Released Windows 286 and Windows 386 on May 27, 1988
1988 – In competition to IBM OS/2, Microsoft releases 2 versions of Windows 2.1x – One version for x286 computers (aka Windows 286) and one for x386 computers (aka Windows 386). Windows 2/x386 introduced the protected code Kernal – applications would run as a virtual 8086 mode, and MS-DOS programs could run in parallel. Windows 2/x386 also provided EMS emulation, which would give Windows memory management features. System RAM beyond 640k could be used, and felt like banked memory. Finally, it has a Presentation Manager mode, to compete with OS/2
Windows updated this software to 2.11. It was finally retired when Windows 3.0 was released in 1990.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 27
Windows 386 full video. Linda needs to save the client, so she loads Windows 386 with Presentation Manager
This was the promo video for Windows 386. It starred Victoria Carver (as Linda) as an executive who had to save a client. She was given a task to make a presentation by 5 pm. She decided to load and use Windows 386 to build this presentation. Using the “Mission Impossible” theme throughout, Linda is confronted by a fellow employee – Mike the mainframe guy. He wants to help Linda out, but Linda knows that the mainframe subroutines simply take too long to write. He then spots Windows 386.
“You are not suppose to be running OS/2 – we haven’t finished evaluating it” Said Mike, the mainframe guy.
“It’s not OS/2. It’s Microsoft Windows 386. It has the same interface as the OS/2 Presentation Manager. So, when OS/2 is recommended, I’ll be ahead of the learning curve.”
“As usual. What else does it do, besides look like OS/2?”
At this point, Linda shows Mike the interface. Of course, Linda then creates the presentation and keeps the client. The video is written like a cheesy 80’s soap opera, and goes on for twelve minutes.
Other Events in the Day in Technology History
Wang introduces: Wang Personal computer
Batman Debuts in Detective comics #27
Google gives away 4,000 Android phones at Google I/O
1995 – Bill Gates sends out a memo to his staff saying that Microsoft needs to “Get back on track” to the Internet. The memo was entitled “The Internet Tidal wave.” Gates emphasizes that this is as important as IBM was to the personal computer.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 25
2012 – After much speculation, Facebook shares go public under “FB”. The stock started at $38 a share but instantly dropped. Stock dropped to $26 / share by years end. It currently hovers around that price.
2001 – The computer animated movie “Shrek” hits theaters. The 90 minute movie was produced on a $60 million budget and although it’s first weekend only saw $42 million , the overall theatrical run brought in $487 million. Shrek was the first computer animated film to win an Academy Award (Best Animated Feature).
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 18
George Lucas was born on May 14th, 1944. Of course, George went on to create one of the biggest franchises in geek history. Lots of geek news this last year as George Lucas sold Lucasfilm and Star Wars to Disney. Happy birthday to George.
Although May 4th is Star Wars day, I still have to say: May the fourteenth be with you!
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 14
May 12, 1996: Prodigy is taken over by Prodigy Management
1996 – IBM and Sears and Roebuck lose Prodigy due to takeover. They sell their interests to a group of investors – led by Prodigy Management: founders of Boston Technology and International Wireless. Ed Bennett, CEO of Prodigy takes the lead in this acquisition. Carlos Slim Helu – Owner of Telmex – then provided Internet access for Mexico and Latin America.Ultimately, Prodigy went public in 1999 and stayed that way until bought out by SBC (AT&T).
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 12
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