Help make Firefox better and get a Gmail invitation!
I will give 5 Gmail invitations to new Mozilla volunteers this week. There are several ways you can make useful contributions to the Mozilla project with only a nightly build of Firefox and a Bugzilla account:
Finding and reporting bugs
You can find bugs to report through everyday use or by intentionally looking for bugs. Good ways to find bugs that haven't already been reported are testing new features (extension manager, two-pane bookmark manager), testing rarely used features (help, bookmark update notification), and testing for keyboard accessibility.
When you find a bug, search Bugzilla to find out if your bug has already been reported. If it hasn't, report it. Most bug reports should include your build ID (from Help > About), steps to reproduce the bug, and the expected and actual results from following those steps.
Triaging unconfirmed bugs
Bugs filed by new Bugzilla users start with the "unconfirmed" status. You can change to "new" once you've checked that they're useful. This includes searching Bugzilla to make sure it isn't a duplicate, making sure the summary (title) is clear and specific, and making sure the bug is in the correct component. If the bug is a bug in page display, it also needs a simplified testcase (see below) before it can be marked as "new". For more information, see Bug Triagers' Guide: Moving a Bug from Unconfirmed to New.
Isolate bugs and create simplified testcases
Isolating bugs is one of the best ways to save Mozilla developers time. In many bug reports, the reporter has included a URL and a description of what Mozilla does wrong at that URL. Before a Mozilla developer can fix the bug, she has to figure out what part or parts of the page trigger the bug. You can save Mozilla developers time by isolating bugs and attaching your minimal minimal testcases to bugs. To find bugs that need testcases, look for unconfirmed bugs in layout components, bugs without the "testcase" keyword, or bugs with the "qawanted" keyword.
Testcases should be as small as possible while still showing the bug. For most layout bugs, a minimal testcase will be under a kilobyte. Be sure to include text in the testcase or in the bug making it clear what the correct behavior is and what Mozilla is doing wrong. For more tips on creating testcases, see The BugAThon.
Contest rules
While or after contributing, tell me your Bugzilla e-mail address. I'll look at what you and other new volunteers have done in Bugzilla and give the accounts to those with the best contributions.
On Tuesday, Asa will be in #mozillazine to help new volunteers learn how to use Bugzilla as part of a weekly event called Bugday. Asa or I can give you Bugzilla privileges once you've added useful comments to a few bugs. These priviliges let you report bugs as new rather than unconfirmed, mark other people's bugs as duplicates, and make other changes to bugs.
You're not limited to the ways of contributing I listed above. For more ideas, see Getting involved with mozilla.org.
Machine learning in Firefox
Blake Ross is looking for ideas for how to improve Firefox with machine learning. He hopes to choose one of the ideas for a summer research project at Stanford. I added several suggestions in a comment on his post.
Online again
Time Warner Cable finally came to my apartment to give me a cable modem today. I was without porn for over two weeks! I had 1418 e-mail messages waiting for me, mostly spam and bugmail.
While I was without an Internet connection in my apartment, I played Rise of Nations and read two short books: The Selfish Gene and Can I Fax a Thank-You Note?.
In Austin
Posting from work ;)
I'm in Austin now. I'm doing well except for two things: it gets very hot outside, and I might not have (fast) Internet access in my apartment for two more weeks. I'm still trying to find a roommate.
