Inside AOL Explorer

OK OK...been a while since I have blogged.  Partially suffering from what most bloggers experience:

First stage in blogging is Irrational Exuberance (got lots to say!)

Second stage is Confused Frustration (nobody is reading!)

Third stage is Arrogant Obligation (gotta post something.  They are depending on me)

Last stage is Deafening Silence (got nothin to say!)

Anyway, this blog is going to be on hold for a bit.

Please continue to use AOL Explorer 1.5 (http://explorer.aol.com) and tell your friends that AOL is really changing and doing cool stuff.

As Desmond on Lost said to Jack, "See you in another life, yeah?"

teambrowser at 11:36:36 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 22 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Hi all,

In the interest of full disclosure for anyone reading this blog....just wanted to say that I had to pull down a posting I did recently regarding an innovating site AOL has.

The site itself needed to be taken down for a little while...but it will be back soon.

Once it is back, I will blog about it again : )

Stay tuned

-Rice

teambrowser at 11:41:28 AM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 7 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Wow.

I cannot remember the last time this happened, but AOL software is once again getting credit for great ideas.  Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery.

Yesterday, Betanews noted that Opera 9 Beta included webpage thumbnails, and gave credit to us: "Opera has even taken a feature from AOL's Explorer browser: 9.0 pops up thumbnail previews of a Web site when the mouse hovers over a tab." (http://www.betanews.com/article/Opera_9_Beta_Brings_Widgets_Torrents/1145551104)

Opera is a great product...and they have some great stuff.

However, I am most excited that the 'outside' worlds (at least Betanews and some of you bloggers) are taking notice all of the innovation inside AOL *and* giving us credit. : )

Regards,

Rice

PS, As noted in a previous post of mine, the Firefox Extension World is also taking cues from AOL Explorer...but we still need to work on the credit-thing! : ) (http://journals.aol.com/teambrowser/AOLExplorer/#Entry879)

 

teambrowser at 1:20:00 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 3 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Just wanted to post an update since it has been a while.

We have been focusing the past few weeks on the International versions of AOL Explorer 1.5.  In case you do not peruse the international beta areas for AOL, we are doing versions for Germany, France, the UK, and Canada. 

Doing International is a challenge, but is very cool.  Our international teams are excellent: we have offices of geeks all over the world, and they are amazingly good at multi-tasking.  These teams not only help to develop, build, and test international versions of AOL Explorer, but a lot of our other products as well: all with a much smaller team than we have here in the US.  Hats off to our Dublin team for keeping all of this going.

Our International teams have always been very creative, and I am looking forward to using some of the localized versions once they ship.  Germany always has cool stuff, as does UK and Canada, mais je habitais en France (il y a dix ans quand meme!); donc, la version francaise sera ma version "defaute." (sorry...a little rusty on typing en francais)

Anyway, I will put up links to the INTL versions once they ship: we do not want to dirty our Beta pools with a bunch of different localized versions, so I would not suggest trying to be a multi-lingual Beta tester : )

For what it is worth, I have been pushing for a Pig-Latin version of AOL Explorer (just to keep our localization translation process honest), but I cannot find anyone to sponsor this project : )

A plus tard (A+),

Rice

teambrowser at 3:21:49 PM EDT Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 7 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Well well well...hand it to AOL to come up with the game-changing software release of 2006.

Today, April 1, 2006, AOL is alpha-testing the B3 Browser here.

This is HOT....this browser works on any type of computer: Mac, Windows, Linux, BeOS...whatever...all of the blogosphere is *on fire* about this! (here here here)

Now...I can use *any* browser (Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, AOL Ex) to get to B3....I have already made B3 my default!

:-P

Rice

 

teambrowser at 7:58:15 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 3 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Last night we "released" the first AOL Explorer 1.5 Release Candidate.

We are getting close to our GM: this build is pretty solid in terms of stability.  No new features since the last Beta release: just bug fixes.  We may have a couple more Release Candidates in the next few days, but this guy is pretty solid.

Since we are getting close to our final release of AOL Explorer 1.5, we need you to download it and pound on it (dl at http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=aolexplorer)

I also wanted to note an historic moment here : )  This is not a huge deal, but in my memory, this is the first time we have used the term "Release Candidate" for AOL Beta software.   A moment of revered silence please...

In the past (AOL 5.0, 6.0, AOL Explorer 1.1, 1.2, etc), we have put out lots of beta releases (at least once a week) and essentially hope that our Beta testers will drink from the firehose of downloads.  In my opinion, we gave the Beta testers too many builds without enough changes in between builds.

We are trying a slightly different approach with AOL Ex 1.5.  We have had only a few Betas (only two Beta releases plus this first Release Candidate).  We are letting the Beta testers know we are almost GM by calling it "Release Candidate."  We have tried to have higher quality Betas too.

Hopefully the end result is a more sane process that gives the users better quality software.

And hopefully, by using the term, "Release Candidate," you will know we are serious about shipping software  : )

-Rice

 

teambrowser at 8:53:52 AM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 4 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

What a week.

We have been getting serious about finishing up AOL Explorer 1.5 in the near future, and have been trying to stabilize the software.

This week was all about telling people no : )

It is amazing stuff needs to come together to ship software.  There are many groups at AOL that contribute to the effort (the QA Team, the Legal Team, the team that measures quality metrics), and many of these groups also support *all* AOL products (not just AOL Explorer).  So while our little team is wholly focused on AOL Explorer, these other groups have the responsibility to support a bunch of products (eg, AIM Triton, WAOL, AOL.com portal, etc).

This week I spent the week getting people focused on AOL Explorer, and telling them why they cannot "just slip one little thing" into the build. : )

The end-game of software is all about stabilization, which means you can only change stuff that really really (really) matters.  If you want to make your dates, you have to tell people to buzz off and come back later.

Anyway, it was a good week, and next week should be fun too.

Keep testing the latest build and let us know what you think.

-Rice

teambrowser at 5:42:31 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 2 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

Phew,

We have just updated the AOL Explorer Beta area with our Beta 2 for version 1.5.  Click here: http://beta.aol.com/projects.php?project=aolexplorer

As noted in previous postings, we have fixed a ton of bugs, and have added a bunch of new themes too...my favorite is "rasta" : )  Check out the other themes.  Some are slick, some are fun, and a few are purposefully ugly for you creative types out there.

We also changed the behavior of the "show page preview"  Showing this preview on mouseover was driving us crazy: the preview was coming up too frequently by accident.  Now, in order to view a page preview, you need to CTRL+Rightclick to view the preview.  I know, I know...users may not discover this on their own, but we did not want accidental previews popping up all over the place.

So...download the latest Beta and let us know what you think.

-Rice

teambrowser at 5:43:12 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 4 comments: Show Recent | Add your own

For those of you in the tech industry, you are probably very familiar with the duration of the project where all you do is focus on bugs.  Getting bugs, understanding bugs, and fixing bugs.

That is where we are right now for AOL Explorer 1.5. : /

Before we go out to Beta, our QA Team (bless 'em) seem to find tons of bugs for the Dev team to fix before we can release the software to Beta.  But getting to Beta is the easy part: the bugs really come in once we are in Beta and are heading toward our final releases.

The QA Engineers are going crazy finding precise failcases for the bugs (for example, "the browser sometimes crashes when you close it" is not enough: what are the machine specs, what other software needs to be running, what sites do you need to have open, etc, is all crucial information that takes time for QA to figure out).  On the Dev side, the coders are fixing the bugs faster than the QA team can write them...which is cool.  However, since the bugs still keep coming in, that means the Dev engineers are constantly crossing a finish line, and getting another finish line to cross.

It is kinda like running a race, finishing it, and then hearing, "oh, just go another mile and *then* you will be done."  ::sigh::

We call this phase The Bug-Hell March : )

At any rate, that is where we are now...fixing the bugs that only a few of you have seen (in general, this has been a pretty stable release). 

You report them, we fix them.  And we are almost all done....

And then we hear of "just one more bug"  : )

-Rice

teambrowser at 5:25:59 PM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

Just a quick update to fill you in on the last week.

So far, the Beta of AOL Explorer 1.5 has been going pretty well.  The Beta boards have a lot of comments, a few bugs, and a few mysteries to chase down.  Here is a summary as to what people think:

->People like themes.  Not surprised... they are a little guilty pleasure that allows you do have a bit more control over your experience.  We are going to add more themes soon, including ones that are a bit more "fun" and a bit less "cool."

->A few people are having problems with the screensaver, but most people got it to install and like it.

->The "Show Preview on Mouse Hover" needs some work from a usability point of view.  Some people are complaining that the delay (5 seconds) is too long, others complain that it is popping up too soon.  I think we are going to change the trigger action of this to be something more immediate but also something more explicit.  Stay tuned.

->Our performance improvements have been noticeable but not monumental.  This is to be expected.  The Performance Improvement Game is one of short-yard plays.....you have to move the ball slowly down the field (sorry for the sports metaphor) in order to get where you are going.

So...that is the summary (IMHO) of our Beta.

We are fixing a bunch of bugs and getting ready for our next beta...which should be out....soon  : )

Thanks for reading,

Steve Rice

teambrowser at 9:25:24 AM EST Permalink | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 29 comments: Show Recent | Add your own