Flock Blog

Beta 1? This means that we have created a release with features that we think are of a usefulness and quality that Flock is usable on a daily basis, but we will not be surprised if it crashes or otherwise behaves poorly.

We are using the modern, web application meaning of beta, as opposed to what was previously used in client/server applications and still used within a development cycle. The other meaning of beta software is having finished the functionality and the most severe bugs, but not having the polish to be used daily.

It seems that Yahoo! made a change to their web search service today that breaks Flock's Top 5 Results from Yahoo! in the search box depending on what the search results are. This is causing Flock to show an alert dialog.

We are working with Yahoo! on resolving this issue. The status of the issue can be tracked in bug 4715.

Update: 18:00 PST, Yahoo! has resolved the issue.

Flock friend Paul Stamatiou wrote what he calls The Definitive Flock Beta 1 Review. This is an impressive review.

It is very complete. There are a number of take away points for me. A day one definitive review? I think it is.

Paul is a great contributor to the Flock community and the industry. Thank you Paul!

Jon Homan

It does not take much time to make a difference. Jon finds a little bit of time on a regular basis to test a feature of Flock or to verify a bug is fixed.

Wow, we have come a long way! The product has had fantastic evolution in the four months since our last major release. I now have the most fun and productive web experience I have ever had.

Milestone 11 is here:
MSWin, MacOS Universal, Linux
* If you are running a recent milestone build, you should have already been informed of an update.

The milestone build is the best way to stay up to date. Our testing team tests to make sure that Flock is working well. Download the milestone build and you will stay up to date with additional fixes right through to the release.

The first beta of Flock should be available within the next couple of weeks. We do not know exactly when, because we are still testing and making sure it will match our and your expectations of experience and quality.

We are a small team and you have made a huge contribution to getting us here! Flock is yours, and the open source code ensures that.

Our team has grown, and we continue to hire leaders in our fields. We are still going to break rules and take risks, but I think we have reached a critical mass of experience in our team that will mean our next release cycle will have significantly more opportunity for collaboration and contribution.

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Flockstar Spotlight: Dinesh Cyanam

I recently wrote Dinesh a Linked in endorsement:

"In only a month, Dinesh has risen to be amoung the top five independent QA contributors that Flock Inc has had. The main reasons are:

It is the time in a release cycle when I take a first pass of making sure the people that have made Flock happen are in the credits for this release.

With much negotiation for the last release with Zbiggy, we came up with what I think is a good contribution crediting policy.

For Flock community members reporting bugs against Flock 0.5.14 , I have started letting them know that the next major release is almost ready.

This release will be the first general beta of Flock. I am very excited!

If you are technically savvy and want to give it a try, go to http://tinderbox.flock.com to check the build status, and click on Download Continuous Test Builds. If you have tried the previous versions, the technology previews, you may be surprised by how much Flock has improved.

This weekend, a lot of bugs have been updated, and not by staff members of the Flock team. I am ecstatics. Volunteer contribution says to me that Flock matters!

Brent Ozar has lit up the testing by reporting and verifying 17 bugs this weekend! Not to be outdone, Jon Homan did 14 bugs. New to the Flock testing community is Dinesh Cyanam who did 11 bugs. One bug is different from the next, but my guess is that these efforts each represents at least a day’s work.

Erwan writes in an email to me, ‘I think we can consider the blog module as "feature complete", and start the testing. If you’re OK, I’ll write a blog post to describe the changes and ask everyone to test on their platform and report bugs.’

So while I wait for the sun to reach Japan again, and for Erwan to write that blog post, I have updated the continuous testing builds status page for Cardinal.