Britney Simpsons Blog

Make your own buttons

Custom Buttons are by far my favorite feature in the new Google Toolbar, which comes out of beta today. Clearly I’m not the only one, either — we have over 600 buttons in the gallery, with new buttons being added every day — and here are some some of my favorites, if you’d like to add them to your Toolbar. If you’re interested in making your own, it’s pretty easy. Just go to one of your favorite sites, right-click on the search box, and then click “Generate Custom Search.” You can find out how to add advanced features to your buttons here.

Firefox Security Update

Firefox has issued an update for its browser across all platforms to improve security and stability.

You can download the update from Mozilla’s Get Firefox site.

Firefox 1.5 users can wait for the automated update that will be released within the next 24-48 hours if they so choose.

From Mozilla: For more information, please see: Firefox 1.5.0.5 Release Notes.

By Molly E. Holzschlag

Space shuttle launches on key mission

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.–The space shuttle Discovery roared off its Florida launch pad and soared into orbit on Tuesday on a key mission whose failure could end the U.S. shuttle program prematurely.

After two weather postponements during the weekend, skies cleared at the Kennedy Space Center and allowed NASA to successfully launch Discovery on just the second shuttle flight since the destruction of the shuttle Columbia and the deaths of seven crew members in February 2003.

Discovery, carrying six Americans and a German, lifted off from the seaside launch site at 2:38 p.m. EDT and jettisoned its booster rockets about 2 and a half minutes into the flight. It reached orbit about 9 minutes after launch.

“Discovery is ready, the weather is beautiful and America is ready to return the space shuttle to flight,” said launch director Mike Leinbach a few minutes before liftoff. “So good luck and Godspeed Discovery.”

“I can’t think of a better place to be, here on the Fourth of July,” shuttle commander Steve Lindsey replied, referring to U.S. Independence Day.

Discovery’s 12-day mission is critical to NASA’s plan to finish the half-built, $100 billion space station before the shuttle fleet is retired in 2010. Another accident or serious problem likely would ground the shuttles permanently.

NASA launched the 115th shuttle mission since 1981 after managers decided a crack in the foam that insulates Discovery’s massive external tank posed no launch hazard.

You can read more by clicking on the headline link about I just thought this was great enough to blog about. Also some bad news I also heard that North Korea test fired some missles today anyone else here of about that?

Bug Independence Day is July 4th! To help shake the bugs out of the upcoming 2.0.4 and 2.1 releases, we’re holding a Bug Hunt next week. We’ll be finding and fixing bugs and cleaning up the bug tracker. All are welcome to join us in the wordpress-bugs IRC channel as we go on the hunt. We’ll get things started at Midnight between Tuesday, July 4, 2006 and Wednesday, July 5, 2006 San Francisco time and keep going for 24 hours or until everyone gets tired. We’ll have folks keepng vigil at all hours so drop by at whatever time is convenient to you.

Click here for more of the hunt at wordpress.

Flickr Photos

Some really great photos on flickr worth checking out