Firefox turns 10, and we go crazy !!

BNU Mozillians
Photo Credts: Farooq Saleemi

Ten years ago, Firefox was created to give you a choice, a choice that is truly independent, that doesn't answer to industry, shareholder or any other corporate interests. Today, hundreds of millions of people use Firefox, because they know that Firefox is designed to protect their privacy and its independence lets it put them first, above all else.

As a part of Firefox’s 10 year anniversary celebrations, and to give users more control, Firefox introduced some awesome new features. One of them is the option of DuckDuckGo – a search engine that doesn't track you. It has been added as a pre-installed search option in Firefox for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Another added feature is a "Forget" button that lets you quickly remove browsing history from the time period you specify, whether that's the last five minutes, hour, or day. Moreover, Firefox also introduced a standalone developer edition customized for Web developers with some exciting new tools available.

The Mozilla Pakistan community decided to host a celebratory event at the Beaconhouse National University, on 10^th of November 2014. The plan included the following:

1. A mobile photo booth – to go around the whole campus and get lots of photo coverage of people wishing Firefox a Happy 10th Anniversary.
2. Gaming competition – to demonstrate games that are able to run right in your browser.
3. Demo station – to display Keons and Firefox OS tablets.
4. Firefox Cake! – No need to explain this part ;) 

Mehmood and I were put in charge of the cake, overseeing the gaming area, and the demo booth. This was the first event that we were demonstrating our Firefox OS tablets and Keons to the general public.

The day kicked off with the photo-booth-people going around the campus and taking pictures. In the meantime, the gaming competition area and the demo booth were setup. The gaming competition commenced as soon as people started pouring in. The sight was amazing, on one side, people were challenging each other on games like “Banana Bread”, “Flappy Bird”, “Zombie Apocalypse”, etc… and on the other side, people were getting hands on at the Keons and Firefox OS tablets. Many expressed their interest in this new operating system and its unique structure and also appreciated the power web in a mobile platform.

Gaming competition in full swing !
Photo Credits: Fatemah Mahdavi

BananaBread - 3D first person shooter game compiled to JS+WebGL
Photo Credits: Fatemah Mahdavi

Firefox OS tablets on display
Photo Credits: Farooq Saleemi

Mozillians playing around with Firefox OS tablets
Photo Credits: Fatemah Mahdavi

Firefox is our independent choice in Pakistan
Photo Credits: Farooq Saleemi

Foxy seems a bit skeptical about giving away these goodies
Photo Credits: Salman Ansari

 

Cake cutting ceremony
Photo Credits:Ahmad Alee

Tempting enough ? :P
Photo Credits: Salman Ansari

The event concluded with a cake cutting ceremony which was followed by a pizza party. It was a great event overall and a day well spent with some enthusiastic Mozillians. For more pictures, please visit the following flickr sets:

1) https://www.flickr.com/photos/imsaleemi/sets/72157648817821987/
2) https://www.flickr.com/photos/salman-ansari-photography/sets/72157649217554761/
3) https://www.flickr.com/photos/128568699@N04/
4) https://www.flickr.com/photos/129211675@N04/page1/ 

 

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Maker Party @ 404

Team 404 watching the Appmaker tutorial during the Maker Party

Maker Party is Mozilla's global campaign to teach the web. Through thousands of community-run events around the world, Maker Party unites educators, organizations and enthusiastic web users with hands-on learning and making. This year, the campaign was scheduled to be from 15th July – 15th September. I decided to start-off with a small Webmaker event for my start-up co-founders where they will be introduced to the Webmaker tools and learn how easy it is to make and remix webpages using them. Moreover, I also planned to introduce Mozilla Appmaker which is a free tool for creating personal mobile apps, even if you don't know code!

Mehmood exploring the webmaker website

Shahmir Khan working on chat app using Appmaker

The venue of the event was PlanX – Acceleration Program – where our start-up (404-Solutions) is currently incubated. I started the event by showing an introductory video on Appmaker which was followed by an introduction to Webmaker. We also explored the web literacy map with particular interest in privacy on the web and discussed the purpose of a Maker Party. Since we did not decide on a theme, everybody was given the liberty to develop whatever they like.

Exploring the web literacy map, where as Mehmood trying to look for vulnerabilities on his new site! :P

Talaal Burny presenting his first make!

I can't LOL because.. I am a cat, lol!

This Maker Party was a very interesting event as we all had fun working on our makes and exploring the web literacy map. Mehmood's make (https://mehmood.makes.org/thimble/LTIwMTEzNjUxMjA=/mozilla) was voted the best among all as he used canvas to display Mozilla written in a bubbly font which disintegrate when you hover your mouse over it. Following are the links to the rest of the makes...

- https://talaalburny.makes.org/thimble/MzIwNjY3OTA0/cutie-cat
- https://hospitable-book-377.webmak.es/install

Webmaker Event Page: https://events.webmaker.org/#!/events/5494
Reps Portal Event Page: https://reps.mozilla.org/e/makerparty-404/

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Infect them while they're young !

Plan9 Summer Camp 2014 – a three week camp offering development of skills including computer programming, animation, photography, writing, public speaking and graphic designing – kicked off on 16th July 2014.

I saw this as an opportunity to teach these kids about the open web and Mozilla. Therefore, along with Muhammad Mehmood Ali, I took up the task to teach basics of web programming in this camp. We used the Webmaker tools to demonstrate how to make and remix webpages.

This workshop proved to be really fruitful since these kids understood what the open web really means. We showed them the code of any website that they wanted using the the 'inspect element' option. They were also asked to make a single page website representing Pakistan's culture and since it wasn't a pure maker-party, we gave them the liberty to use the editor of their choice. There were also videos queued up like 'The Mozilla Story", "The Web We Want", "I Am a Mozillian", etc, which were showed during these sessions to keep them motivated and informed. A lot of these kids switched to Firefox and promised to spread the word amongst their friends and family. 

 

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Contributing to Mozilla @ Superior University

On 10^th of June 2014, along with the collaboration of Superior Connections (sister company of Superior University), I organized an introductory Mozilla session for the students there. The session included introducing the local Mozilla community to the students and helping them setup a Firefox Club at the University. Moreover, the students were given an overview of some cutting edge technologies and products by Mozilla e.g. Firefox OS, Webmaker, Appmaker, etc. There were also demos of the latest Firefox, developer preview versions of Firefox OS devices, and alpha version of the Urdu Firefox (a work in progress by Mozilla Pakistan). The attendance from Mozilla Pakistan included Muhammad Mehmood Ali (who also gave a talk on Firefox OS during the event), Talaal Burny (who played the role of a host), and Ma’am Huda Sarfraz (she provided us with swag, Mozilla standees, and presented the closing note). These introductory sessions are proving to be really effective as more and more people are joining the local community (as a result of these) to contribute to different Mozilla projects.

Event banner at the venue

My talk during the event

Mehmood presenting a talk on Firefox OS

Closing note by Huda Sarfraz

Audience

Receiving the guest of honor

Group picture

more audience...

Post-session euphoria ! :)

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New Firefox Launch Event - Pakistan

Group Photo
Photo Credit: Zahbia Sarfraz

The most awaited UI update to Firefox arrived on the 29th April 2014. Mozilla last refreshed the browser's UI with Firefox 4, which launched in March 2011. It has been working on the new UI since at least May 2012. All Mozilla communities across the globe decided to celebrate the change by hosting Firefox Launch Parties in their respective regions. Mozilla Pakistan hosted their launch party on 10th of May 2014, at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore - organized by Huda Sarfraz. The purpose of this Launch Party was to introduce the latest version of Mozilla Firefox and educate the public in detail about the design change and the new added features to this version. Moreover, demo stations were setup to display the developer preview version of the Firefox OS devices and the alpha version of Firefox in Urdu - a work in progress by Mozilla Pakistan.

Tags
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

Registration Desk
Photo Credit: Salman Ansari

I was part of the event management team and I was also asked to present a talk on ' Mozilla and the new Web '. We had a total of 150 expected attendees on our list, out of which around 100 showed up on the event day - we're counting this as a big success, considering this was our very first official event under the Mozilla Pakistan banner. The attendees were registered for the event on spot and they were handed their tags along with some awesome Firefox swag. Registration was followed by tea while the attendees enjoyed different videos (Mozilla Story Video, Firefox OS introductory video, Ylvis - The Fox - 'What Does The Fox Say?' ) playing in a loop. The event kicked off with Talaal Burny introducing the local community, explaining the agenda for the day, and giving away a Firefox cap to one of the attendees who had Firefox installed on his android phone.

(me) Demonstrating the Webmaker tools
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

Talaal Burny joking about me having an IE tattoo on my right arm ... :D
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

The first talk was presented by Asad Sajjad (Club Lead - BNU Mozillians) on how to get involved and different volunteering opportunities at Mozilla. Then it was time for the second giveaway of the day - anyone correctly identifying the Webmaker logo was given Firefox swag. Next in line was my talk on 'Mozilla and the New Web'. I started off with discussing what has Mozilla done, what do we do now, and how Mozilla is reshaping the web with some cutting edge technologies and products. I demonstrated Firefox OS, Appmaker, Shumway, and Webmaker to the audience - they loved it !
The third giveaway of the day was after my talk - anyone correctly identifying the Firefox OS logo was given Firefox swag.

Fawad Hasan introducing Firefox OS
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

Our awesome social media team
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

The next speaker was Fawad Hasan, who came in all the way from Islamabad to speak at this event. His topic was Firefox OS and application development using web APIs. He coded a Contact Viewer demo app in front of the audience to show how easy it is to get started with Firefox OS app development. The source code of this app can be found here: https://github.com/iFadey/FxContactManager ... Next came the tongue twister competition where the participants had to say 'the quick orange Firefox jumped over the lazy dog' (3 times) in-order to win Firefox swag. Watch the video here.

Mehmood Ali & Hasan Ahmad on stage to unveil the new Firefox
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

Panel - Q & A session
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

The most important presentation of the day was saved for the last - THE UNVEILING OF THE NEW FIREFOX ! Muhammad Hasan and Muhammad Mehmood Ali took to the stage and unveiled the latest version of the Firefox, explaining in-depth about the new design and key features that were introduced with this new version. Immediately after this presentation the core team (including reps and core contributors) stepped up to answer any questions regarding the new Firefox. As expected, people had a lot of questions regarding the change in design and about some of the new features like Firefox accounts. The panel answered each and every question to complete satisfaction of the audience. To conclude the program, Huda Sarfraz was invited on stage to talk about Mozilla's mission and why you should become a contributor. After her talk, Talaal Burny announced 2 more contests (apart from the 'The Best Tweet Contest' announced at the start) - 'Best Firefox Selfie Contest' and 'Best Photo-Booth Picture Contest' - that were carried out during lunch break and the winners were announced when everyone came back after the break to enjoy awesome Firefox Cake ! :)

Firefox Cake ! :D
Photo Credit: Salman Ansari

Firefox swag at work
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

Photo Booth Contest
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

Audience's favorite photo
Photo Credit: Zahbia Sarfraz

The host (Talaal Burny) cracking up the audience
Photo Credit: Salman Ansari

again...
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

yes, everybody went gaga over the cake ! :D
Photo Credit: Salman Ansari

this shirt says it all ...
Photo Credit: Farooq Saleemi

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13 years of age, loves programming, and passionate about Mozilla !

I met Raffay Ansari at Plan9 - Tech Incubator. He is the youngest intern who works there with incubated start-ups on the technical side. A few minutes into a conversation with him will make you realize that he is no ordinary kid. With his proficiency in programming, exuberant creativity, and sheer confidence, he sure has the right ingredients to cook success! Just recently, he joined my start-up as an intern, to assist us and learn from the experience. On his first day, I introduced him to the concept of Free and open-source software (FOSS) and discussed some Mozilla products like Firefox and Firefox OS. He took keen interest in the conversation and expressed his desire to start contributing to Mozilla by uploading a game of Tic Tac Toe, that he coded in JavaScript, on the Firefox Marketplace. Moreover, he joined our local Mozilla Pakistan community to contribute further into his areas of interest, hence, becoming the youngest contributor from Mozilla Pakistan so far ! :)

Left to Right: Mehmood Ali, Raffay Ansari, Shahmir Khan

A screenshot of Raffay's desktop

Tic Tac Toe - by Raffay Ansari
soon to be revamped and uploaded on
Firefox Marketplace

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