Six more. I’ll be giving them away based on the following priorities:
(1) Being the first to fix or file a valid bug against Mozilla which hinders development of Abacus

. Basically, when something is broken or doesn’t work in the Abacus code, and Abacus’s source code is written correctly. (I expect very few people to come up with these, so don’t sweat about it too much.) The more serious and specific bugs will get higher priority than vague, trivial bugs.
(2) Being the first to fix a bug in Abacus. There’s lots of them, and some of them are pretty darned easy! All you would have to do is file the bug (if someone else hasn’t), and then file a patch for review.
(3) Being the first to file a valid bug against Abacus. http://abacus.mozdev.org/bugs.html Again, many of these are easy… in some cases, the strict warnings tell you what I know about but haven’t gotten around to getting done yet.
(4) Useful comments on subjects this weblog talks about. FYI, no one really took a look at my <xul:serverpost/> idea the last time I offered invites…
First-come, first-served does NOT apply. I’m looking for quality, not speed or quantity. Duplicate bug reports do not count!
UPDATE: For those looking to earn gmail invites per this entry: I’ve only given away one. So please add a comment to this blog entry if you qualify by one of the means above. Include first & last name so I can actually fill in the blanks GMail provides. Also, if you are filing a bug in Mozilla’s bugzilla, please cc me! ajvincent@gmail. If you file a bug at MozDev, and I didn’t get a copy of it, cc me and send me a private e-mail so I can notify the mozdev people.
(For the record, I gave away that invite unfairly. I clearly stated “valid”, and right now it’s UNCO, so mea culpa on that one. Further, it doesn’t hinder Abacus operations at all, so big mea culpa on it! I’ll try not to do it again, in case the bug turns out to be invalid or duplicate.)
(Still, don’t let that stop you from filing bugs against Mozilla! More bug reports that are valid and meaningful are better than less.)

I’ve got six more. As stated in my last blog entry, all I ask is that you take a good look around this blog’s archives and see if some entry I’ve written about interests you and/or is useful. If so, file a comment there, file a comment here, and I’ll try to accomodate you.
It may not be first-come, first-served this time. Be aware that last time, I was able to react fairly quickly. It won’t be until late afternoon today (PDT) before I can start handing them out.
UPDATE: Closed! Sorry, guys, but I had six and gave out six. The lucky six know who you are.
I’ve had a few people offering their own invites (one even allowed me to judge for them who should get them!), but I’m not going to go out of my way on this. It’s all well and good for commenters here to privately contact each other, though.
I appreciate everyone who did take the time to look through my blog and respond. I restricted them to people who specifically commented in useful ways on the weblog. A couple people didn’t qualify in my eyes (though I approved your comments anyway), so my apologies if you think you earned one and I didn’t give one to you. I did say it wouldn’t necessarily be first-come, first-served… I didn’t have enough to hand them out willy-nilly.
Tying the last two paragraphs together: if you didn’t get an invite from me and want one anyway, I have two options for you. (1) Contact someone who said they had invites, and ask them. From the looks of it, most appear to be more generous than I am

. (2) Wait a few days for me to get more invites, and I’ll do it all again for NEW comments. (In other words, comments you’ve already posted don’t count for future goodies!)
Cheers!

Good Lord! I’ve blogged about a MathML editor, tools for editing XUL better, blogspam, build suggestions… and I get very little feedback.
I post ONE notice about GMail invites, and my weblog is flooded with responses!
If I get more invites, I’m going to politely ask that people actually give me feedback on the stuff I play with.
If I get a third round and no one does give me that feedback, I’ll insist on it

. 🙂

Yes, I have six GMail invites if anyone wants them. I accepted an invite from a fellow CodingForums.com moderator, and so they’re here if you want them

.
I, however, am not entirely enthused about having a whole gigabyte of e-mail storage.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what I’d do with it!

(which I did, and many thanks to bsmedberg for the -z 9 advice)
Although I was successful this time in pulling the tree, I’m thinking there are some little tweaks we can do to make the process more friendly for dialup developers (an oxymoron in the 21st century, but I fit in the category).
(1) SeamonkeyAll is a huge beast to pull. One foul-up in the pull (such as a disconnect that you don’t catch in time), and your whole pull is hosed. I wonder if there’s some way to identify all the directories SeamonkeyAll actually grabs for the user, stuff it into a list that the make process can parse while pulling, and then store that separately. That way, if an error happens, you still have a portion of the tree, and a logical point to restart.
(2) Pull-by-date should become mandatory in a dialup pull. I’m glad to see the .mozconfig script has that, and it should be used. I didn’t use it earlier, and now I regret it

.
(3) The client.mk process doesn’t have a restart option. This is not good. Of course, the assumption inherent is that the checkout and/or build process failed because something was horked on the process, not in something beyond the process’s control.
I’m not advocating an automatic restart. The developer doing a CVS update will be able to tell what’s really at fault for a bad pull.
Could a script be written to (a) set the pull date, and (b) log which portions have or have not been pulled yet for said pull date? That way, we could include a special option in .mozconfig (–may-disconnect), which would run this script each time the client.mk process started up. Concurrent with a little user feedback (answering one or two questions about the last pull, and whether he wants a fresh update or to complete an earlier update), it would be a huge timesaver.
Broadband users would be advocated not to enable this option. 🙂 Opinions?

I’ve blogged before about having limited Internet access

. The good news is that at home, I now have (at least temporarily) dialup access through a generous benefactor’s computer and (with his permission) AOL account.
Add to that some FastLynx software from Sewell Development, and I figured I could just update my tree by running the normal checkout commands.
But when the CVS command takes six hours or more to run a checkout on SeamonkeyAll, I start thinking it’s hanging. So, I tinkered around a little bit (that build configuration script is nothing short of amazing) and added a -t option for the cvs command via .mozconfig.
Now I’m reassured that it won’t hang. I’m equally reassured that I can’t stay up all night to watch for AOL to disconnect me…
I guess I’m back to downloading nightlies and hacking strictly chrome apps… this isn’t too bad, considering all I hacked on the lizard was chrome apps…
By the way, leaf, when are we going to see those Windows zip builds in ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/nightly/latest, like you’ve been promising me for the last 18 months or so on the few occasions we bump into each other? 🙂 Windows installers suck.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/188368_mtrainier28.html
The reason, he said, is that ozone — a combination of factory emissions and car exhaust “cooked together” with sunlight — consists largely of nitrogen oxide, which turns around once the sun goes down and destroys ozone.
Parse that sentence and tell me if I’m reading it right: ozone is self-destructive

.
I thought ozone was molecules made up of 3 oxygen atoms…

I’ve got bad news for you.
Every comment a visitor (including you) tries to post to my weblog, now I have to personally approve before it lands on the site. So, Mr. bob@y####.com, GIVE IT UP. You’re never going to see another one of your links on my blog again.
Oh, and if you think you might still get ME to read them? Nope. I use a web-based e-mail service, so I can delete garbage unseen, and more importantly, undownloaded.
For those of you worried about censorship: don’t be

. If you have something not nice to say about me, but it’s fair and intelligent, I’ll post it anyway. I’m not doing this to silence anyone other than those who abuse the privilege of this weblog’s open commenting system.

(1) I received my new Mozilla shirt in the mail a couple days ago. Fits nicely; I like the style… only one little beef with it.
Couldn’t they have put a pocket on it? 🙂
(2) I’m getting a lot more evil comments on this blog lately. Methinks MovableType will hopefully block out autospamming tools in its next release

.
(3) I’m thinking about changing the name of this weblog to “Burning Chrome,” referring to William Gibson’s work. I don’t do too much work on DOM Inspector or documentation… but I do like to develop cutting-edge stuff in Mozilla’s user interface. Or, to put it more artfully, to burn chrome.

I’ve written an 1,100-page book on JavaScript. I’ve written a MathML editor for Mozilla (pre-release, but still fairly good). I’ve created new widgets and new ideas for programming in Mozilla. I’ve dabbled in amateur science fiction that’s been rather well-received. And I still haven’t gone to college yet.
I’m 26 years old, and I’m working in a job that, while enjoyable, has nothing to do with the sort of stuff I want to be doing. For years, my parents have been telling me to go to college, and I’ve been saying for years I want to go. But if I keep putting it off… how many companies would be willing to hire me for doing what I love doing: developing web technologies and/or writing about them?
So, I need your help.
I’m calling for any sort of connections (networking in the original sense of the word) that can help me get into college and get a degree. Whatever you think might help me, please let me know through my e-mail and/or this blog (which ends up in my e-mail anyway). Whether it’s scholarships, good advice, letters of recommendation, whatever: I need it, and I need it fast

.
I’ve just sent off an exploratory e-mail to the admissions dept. of my local community college. It’s a first step, but I pray it’s not the last.