04 Jul 08 Firefox Certificate

“From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3!” came the statement from Mozilla, making this the record download of software in 24 hours, and earning them a place in Guinness World Records.

Mozilla’s servers crashed on the day due to the very high demand, but they had them back up in a couple of hours, and I went ahead and got copies of Firefox 3.0 for both my Windows and Linux machines here, and they’ve run without a hitch since.

In the time since Download Day, over 28 million people have downloaded the browser. The United States leads the world in Firefox 3 downloads with over 7.7 million. Germany ranks a distant second with over 2.4 million users downloading the Mozilla’s browser to date.

Firefox now commands 19% total market share according to ZDnet blogs.

Tags: downloads, firefox, germany, guinness world records, linux, linux machines, market share, mozilla, servers, utc

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28 May 08 Birthdays

Christopher Lee, actor who starred in many horror movies, and who was born on this day in England in 1922, shares his birthday with Dr Henry Kissinger,Nobel Prize Winner, and one time US Secretary of State who was born the following year in Germany.

Tags: christopher lee, christopher lee actor, dr henry kissinger, England, germany, henry kissinger, horror movies

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02 Feb 08 What is the history behind our current celebration of Groundhog Day?

Around the fifth century, the European Celts believed that animals had certain “supernatural” powers on special days that were half-way between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox. Folklore from Germany and France indicated that when Groundhogs came out of their winter dens too early, they were frightened by their shadow and retreated back inside for four to six weeks.