Chrome 3 - lovin' it still

Yep - Google's chrome browser is up to version 3 already, and it's just getting better all the time. It's been out for a couple of days, and I've been playing with it, thus leading to this fantastic write up.

All the main points from when v.2 was released are still the same. I still don't like having personal information about me stored when all I want to do is browse. I still occasionally want to use some plugins, but I haven't seen any 'official' ones yet.

Some new features - speed (again) and themes. I like the themes that Google have offered, they're simple, quick and plain (ish). All this means that they don't slow the jolly browser down - unlike some of the themes on offer with Firefox.

When it comes to plugins, I'll just keep using FF.

Enjoy!

One way that Open Source will defeat the ogres of Closed software!

I was doing my daily digesting of comics (you really should try it, a bit of laughter is good for the soul... or is it chicken soup?), and laughed at this comic at dilbert.com:

http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-09-01/

This reminds me of the fight over XML document standards... OO.o V MS anyone? I'm not 100% sure which one is which at the moment though. Hmmm.

I'm also just a tad freaked out that the guy doing the Kung Fu looks a little like me, and his Kung Fu is at about my level. Sheer coincidence? Quite possibly, but can we be sure? Hmmm.

idontlikeapples #2

There's a new idontlikeapples post.

Go read it, subscribe and make me feel good about myself.

My own little ZJXS webcomic

I've started my own webcomic... don't ask why - I don't know.

But, I've been reading a fair bit of xkcd.org (which when it's not rude is funny, and when it's rude, it's quite rude) and laughing more than a little, so I decided to profile pic myself in the good 'ol xkcd way. That's right, in stick figures!

Some of my students saw it and suggested creating a webcomic (thanks AM and MS). So I did. The first strip was actually drawn on a whiteboard at school, but it quickly turned into black gunk on my hand. I might put it up one day... you never know.

The first strip starts where most teachers start with a new class - at the start.

Hope you like it... I wouldn't mind getting some google money one day. :)

Listed on the front page of Google - kind of

Hi all,

I wrote a long time ago about being on the 6th page of google's search results when searching for myself. Now, I can proudly state that I feature on the first (yes, friends and countrymen people - the FIRST) page of google's results.

I need to state, to remain at least partly honest, that it is not my content, nor my luminary intellectual wit and writings which has brought about this phenomenon, rather it is the fantastic profile picture which one of my fantastic students put together, featured on the Joomla! extension K2 community page. That was quite a ramble.

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so:

Take a look for yourself... that's me!

enjoy my goatee!

Google Operating System... but not Android

Google has announced (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html) that it will be creating an Operating System specifically built for netbooks. It's not hard to see, though, Google expanding upon this over time to drive the OS onto the more traditionally bloated area of laptops and desktops. I'd be interested, for example, in putting it on (at least in a virtual machine) on my desktop for a look-see.

Some points of interest:

• It will be built around the linux kernel - I bolded that for a reason. They're not building it around a linux distribution (eg. gOS or ubuntu etc).
• From what I can gather, it will be a new windowed version of Chrome (the browser) running on top of that kernel - nice sandboxing of apps, just like in Chrome
• It will be aimed 100% at web-apps only. This is obviously good for google - master of the web app domain
• It will be open source. This means more security (read all about that here)
• They've already got some hardware support (link)
• Being made by google, and being based on chrome, you can bet that there will be a host of privacy concerns. Hmmmm. Better start watching for black 4WDs and people wearing sunglasses on cloudy days. :)

Obviously, there's a lot more points to note, but you can read about it in the google blog, or by doing a google search.

For those of you who are conspiracy freaks (like me), you could be forgiven for thinking that this is just one more step to google taking over the world!

But I love it.

Chrome 2

Love it. It's like version 1, but better, faster and more... just more.

It's fast, really fast. I know that I've said that about Firefox before, but Chrome is really speeding along. I'm currently posting this using Chrome. Nice.It loads faster than either Firefox or IE 7 0r 8, which is saying something. You'd think the people who make the OS would be able to make it move.

I've noticed a few issues, though. While it is built on the open source project Chromium, it still uses a lot of personal information hooks (which google assures us are not too damning and/or permanent) including a unique ID for the download of Chrome that you're using.

Another issue is that of plugins. Nowadays, there's a lot of stuff out there which is quite useful to view in a browser (like pdf files) and Chrome, or at least my Chrome, won't open them. Not surprisingly things like flash and flvs (they are the file of choice behind most video sharing sites like youtube) do play, and play well, but the other, less googled plugins just aren't there.... yet.

Google has said that they are planning on building in a plugin architecture, but I understand their hesitancy in doing so.

There are two main problems with browsers including plugins: security and speed.

Security becomes an issue when you allow someone else to add scripts (often with a great amount of power/priveledges) to an otherwise secure browser. This reduces the possibility of a browser vendor being able to assure users of the security of their program. They have no power to control what the programmers of the plugin add to the code. And at the moment, Google have scored on the security issue. Its a complete redesign from the other browsers out there. I like that.

Secondly a browser will slow down the more plugins are added - this is simply because it is more program code which has to be run and stored in memory. A plain vanilla installation of Firefox is blazingly fast. Add a few plugins (say 10 or so) and it becomes less weildly and more labourious.

Anyway, at the moment I've got three browsers going: IE, Firefox and Chrome. IE because I don't have much choice, Firefox for the plugins (I do need them from time to time) and Chrome, because I like its user interface and its speeeeeeeeed.

Make up your own mind. After all, it is yours.