Posts from — September 2008

I won’t take a bunch of time telling you what Google Chrome is about.  Rather, I’ll give you a quick bullet list of neat features and let you go out on your own and get the details.

• Its fast.  VERY fast.
• It has crash control – one tab won’t crash the whole thing.
• Tabs can be ripped off to their own window or merged back into the bar.
• Incognito mode – a “no record” type of web browsing, which is great for accessing sensitive or confidential information on shared resources (think web banking at work, web mail at a conference, accessing your company’s CRM system at one of those public PC’s at an airport, etc.)
• Application shortcuts to make web apps feel more like desktop apps
• A minimal interface so that the content is the focus, not the browser
• and more.

Its still a beta version and has a few issues – for instance, while writing this post, the entire browser crashed, not just one tab.  So much for crash control! To be fair, it wasn’t my web app that crashed. It was the browser itself – so, crash control on tabs wasn’t supposed to solve that kind of thing.  Again, its a beta.  As such, it is very promising.

My overall feeling about it – WOW, is that fast.  Every page seems to load 20-50% faster anecdotally than anything in FF or IE, and the minimal interface is really nice (a bit similar to full screen tabbed browsing, but that’s OK).

I have a few concerns too:

• How long will they actually continue developing it?
• Spell checking doesn’t seem to be integrated yet – I LOVE integrated spell check in FF
• There is no plug-in mechanism yet (AFAIK…)
• Will this derail Google’s long time support of FF?  They did just renew their commitment to it, but is another browser really necessary?  I love FF and wish they would have simply worked with that initiative to improve FF to be everything that they wanted to achieve with Chrome.
• Google has its own agenda (ad revenue), and sometimes things seem out of touch with that goal.  With FF as a non-affiliated browser, why the need for Chrome?  They give some answers, but none that ring true enough to warrant a separate branch from FF, in my opinion.  It makes me wonder what evil plans they have lurking in the wings.  To be certain, Google has long been the Jedi to Microsoft’s Sith, but (in my best Yoda voice) - “The Chosen One, Google may be. Still, too clouded its future is.”  Google has been trying to become a viable and complete computing platform, hoping to drive Microsoft out of its stranglehold on PC computing.  But, once it is successful, what evil things will it start to commit? Some would say the evil has already started…  To borrow a line from The Dark Knight - will they be the hero long enough to see themselves become the villain?

Only time will tell.

But, if they clean up a few of the gaps that currently exist as compared to FireFox, Chrome may actually be an extremely viable third option.  After all, its from Google.  They usually don’t make things that suck.

“A team of Japanese researchers are looking at the next step in immersive gaming, and it just may be ultrasound. The technology adds a sense of tactile feedback to games, without the use of gloves or other devices.” from Gearlog

Wow, now THAT would be cool.  Though, would I really want to actually feel all those sword slashes, bullet wounds and tactical nuclear strikes on my person?  Hmm… Maybe I need to rethink this…  :)

Actually, this reminds me of a PC peripheral that was described roughly 10 years ago – it was a scent generator that was hooked up to your PC and that sat on top of your monitor.  It could generated about 10 different scents and they were working on more.  The idea was that since the sense of smell is the one most closely tied to memory, that it would be an excellent sensory immersion mechanism.  It never really went anywhere, as far as I can tell – maybe it had to do with the fact that people don’t really want to know what hordes of rotting zombies being burned to bits smells like.  *shrug*  Just a thought.  :)

OK, so you know how I keep saying – “tell me one big thing that Obama has done, other than get elected?”  Well, I guess he agrees with me!

In bashing Palin, the best thing he can come up with in his “vast” bag of experience is his own presidential campaign! HAHA!

Obama told CNN on Monday that Palin’s level of experience as a former mayor of tiny Wasilla, Alaska, did not match his own, citing the size of his campaign.

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wasilla, has I think 50 employees. We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million dollars a year — we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,” Obama had said. (from Reuters)

I guess he is forgetting that she is also a state governor, with more direct responsibility for “getting something done” than a state or federal senator will ever have.

Look at Mr. Obama’s history.  He was in school until 1991, worked on something called “Project Vote” for one year, and then was an attorney for 4 years before being elected to the Illinois state senate.  He’s only been at the federal level for 4 years, with the last one or more of those having been focused on his presidential campaign.  Talk about a bunch of mostly no-direct-responsibility jobs.

This is the best guy to run the country?

Most people like Obama because he is so articulate.  I say, the only reason why Obama is so good at talking in public is because ALL he does is talk! He hasn’t really DONE anything yet… Do we really want his “big” test to be as the President of the US?

At least McCain has gone through real hardship, was in the navy for 22 years and has been in either the federal House or Senate since 1982.  Twenty six years experience!

Yeah, he’s a freakin’ dud when it comes to speeches, but who cares?  His experience is infinitely more important than his speech making ability.   *SIGH*  I can’t believe I’m defending McCain.

Honestly now… These two guys are the best people our country can produce at this moment?

Lord help us.

To quote a line from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: I weep for the future…