Firefox Download day? What download day?

Today is supposedly "Download Day" for Firefox 3.0 and they are trying to set a record for the number of downloads of a software product in one day. So this morning before work I fire up Firefox and tell it to check for updates - no dice, it thinks it is up to date. Well I do have one of the release candidates installed so perhaps it doesn't think the official release is any different from what I have.

So then I go to the SpreadFirefox.com download site to do my bit and low and behold I get some Drupal default installation page. I figure their site must be so overloaded with downloaders it has crashed. I start searching Digg, SlashDot and others thinking there will be a story about it but there isn't. So then I go to Mozilla.com and low and behold it is still proudly proclaiming Firefox 2 as the latest and greatest. On the right hand side there is a little "Firefox 3 Sneak Peak link" but that is it.

So I surf over to SpreadFirefox.com again and this time the page loads with normal content, perhaps last time I just got bounced to a new machine in a cluster that hadn't yet been set up properly. But the site looks just like it did yesterday still asking me to pledge to download. There is a download button which I click and it takes me to a Firefox 2 download page. At this point I figure 95% of people who came here to download Firefox 3 on "Download Day" will give up - they don't need FF2.0 and they don't need a wild goose chase trying to find FF3.0. And even if they do download something it really looks like it may not count for the record (there's no count of "Downloads Today" either).

One possibility remains - they changed the date on me. It's not actually obvious from the website when download day is - they don't have a countdown or even the date in a big font right up there. But I eventually find that by clicking on the "Pledge Now" button it takes me to a page that clearly says

"The official date for the launch of Firefox 3 is June 17, 2008. Join our community and this effort by pledging today."

I then actually go through the pledge process and there is never any mention of a time, either local or UTC based - I would have assumed I could have started at 00:01 June 17th local time, or maybe UTC time. Finally I double check the date on my computer... June 17th.

Sorry but my guess is download day will probably fail to live up to expectations at this point since by anyone's calculations June 17th is pretty much over for most of the world and a huge percentage of the pledged downloaders. It may be 8:30am here in Pacific Time but over in Europe its already getting into evening and Asia is now into night. I wish them luck but I don't think I'm going to be wasting much of my time at work trying to chase down FF3.0 - I'll probably get it tomorrow or whenever it prompts me to download now.

It seems like as America wakes up and goes to work (at least on the West Coast) someone really wasn't ready on the infrastructure side. Trust me we'll hear more about this... Plus I really question the wisdom of basing a WorldWide product release with so much fanfare on Pacific Time!

Update 9:00am: I've since found a story on Digg by someone who says they found a note saying they wont be ready until 10:00am Pacific Time. But I don't see that anywhere. Plus now when I go back to SpreadFirefox.com I'm getting more and more connection errors and Drupal database errors which doesn't bode well.

Update 10:30am: All my efforts to reach spreadfirefox.com are now resulting in connection timeout errors - not Drupal or other server side errors, it is just plain not responding.

Update 2:30pm: Finally able to get to the SpreadFirefox.com website (on the second browser reload - it is still getting connection errors sporadically). The site is still looking like it did yesterday but the download link at least takes you to a 3.0 download. The Mozilla.com home page is dedicated to 3.0 download. Also when I did an update on my Ubuntu box it also found the 3.0 package in the repositories - so I've kicked off two downloads, one for Windows and one for Ubuntu.

Airlines missing the obvious way to save weight on planes?

It seems that airlines are taking heroic measures to save weight on their planes - from lighter seats, less water in bathrooms to sharing manuals between pilots. The NYTimes articles quotes one airline as saying every 25 lbs saved on their planes saves $440,000 per year in fuel costs - which I assume is across their entire fleet, not per plane.

But it seems to me that they are missing, or at least keeping quiet about the most obvious way to reduce the weight of their planes - reduce the passenger load they are carrying. Baggage surcharges are unpopular and unless uniform a point of competition between airlines, however attempts to charge over sized passengers for two seats are controversial - just how do you define over sized without forcing a passenger onto scales, something about as unpopular as trying to back scatter x-ray them for security. So maybe passenger load could apply to just bags - we all know the people who carry the max just because they can - and usually have bags full of stuff they just don't need, even for a short trip. Carry on bags are often a source of abuse because they seldom get weighed (I've never seen a weight check on them, just size) and people always manage to loadup with extra laptop bags, baby bags or handbags stuffed the brim with junk.

How about the full price assumes you take maximum baggage weight, say 50lbs, but if your combined carry-on (everything but you) plus checked baggage weighs less than that weight then you get a discount - and as always an overage in the baggage department still attracts a surcharge. This will at least incentivize customers to reduce their baggage weight and pass on fuel savings to them.

Another way would be for planes to have a greater variety of seat sizes and spacings with appropriate pricing - but not such a difference as between coach and business which get an additional level of service too. Passengers would then naturally pick the appropriate seat that they are comfortable with and pay a small premium accordingly. Some airlines already have premium seats with extra legroom, but extra width and legroom might be even more attractive - if you can figure out how to arrange seats to accommodate that (maybe a diagonal isle?).

Yes, all crazy ideas I know, but it seems like airlines are looking for crazy ideas!