Category — General

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.  :)

Have you heard about the new search engine created by ex-Googlers?

Its called Cuil – pronouced Cool – from the old Irish word, meaning Knowledge.

Its – well, its a search engine.  Has some neat features – I very much like the layout of search results and the tabs that help merge search with navigation.  Will all this be enough to pull me away from Google?  I don’t know.

I have such a love / hate relationship with Google, so it is hard to tell.  They have great stuff, but they are also extremely liberal in nature.  How liberal?  The last reported numbers that I could find had 98% of all political donations going to the Democrats.

Do I really want to use / enrich / endorse a company that is so blatantly anti-conservative?  Not really.

I guess I will try Cuil for a while and see how it goes…

I don’t eat fast food as much as I’d like to.

I probably eat it more than I should.

Anyway, when my wife decided that she was going to take herself, my daughter and two nieces out to lunch, the kids wanted to go to McDonalds.

My wife asked me what I wanted them to bring me back for lunch.  I went to McDonald’s website, and for 10 minutes tried to find their stinking menu.  I could find out how many calories are in a McNugget, but not what their menu is.

I sent them this letter.  I’ll let you know if they respond.

Hello,

I think your marketing or web design team has forgotten that McDonald’s is actually a restaurant.  Where the heck is the MENU listing on your site??

I know that nutritional information, all of your public works, scholarships, donations, and keeping people up to date on sports and exercise is important.  Given the flack that you’ve received lately, I can understand you addressing it all on your site.

But, honestly – you guys are a restaurant chain, first and foremost.  I know every restaurant doesn’t have each item available, but you really should have your MENU as a top level choice at the top of your page.

Given how big you guys are, you may not care about this, but my wife took herself and three kids to Carl’s Jr. instead of McDonalds, because I could look up their menu and tell her what to pick me up for lunch.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

The sad part is that they just came through the door holding…you guessed it.  McDonalds bags.

Oh well.  So much for voting with my dollars!

Check out this awesome song from Craving Lucy, a new band that is simply awesome.  My friend’s son is on accustic guitar…  Get them on iTunes, Rhapsody or Amazon!

I’m Alive!

Props to my Brother and his wife for this info…  Verified on Snopes.com.

I lost my Mom to a stroke so I hope that this helps you.

Perhaps you can save someone you love after learning this?

STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters…. S.T.R.

My nurse friend sent this and encouraged me to post it and spread the word. I agree.

If everyone can remember something this simple, we could save some folks. Seriously..

Please read:

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:

During a BBQ, a friend stumbled and took a little fall – she assured everyone that she was fine (they offered to call paramedics) …..she said she had just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Ingrid’s husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital – (at 6:00 PM Ingrid passed away.) She had suffered a stroke at the BBQ. Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don’t die…. they end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead.

It only takes a minute to read this…

A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke… totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE
Thank God for the sense to remember the “3″ steps, STR . Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke .

Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions:
S * Ask the individual to SMILE.
T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(i.e. It is sunny out today)
R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue

NOTE: Another ’sign’ of a stroke is this: Ask the person to ’stick’ out his tongue.. If the tongue is ‘crooked’, if it goes to one side or the other , that is also an indication of a stroke.****

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved.

****  snopes.com reports that the tounge test may have too much room for interpretation and that sticking with the original 3 tests is best.

Hey!  Did you know that you can “upgrade” a book at Amazon?  I just purchased a book, and it gave me the option to upgrade to also own a digital version that is hosted by Amazon.  For only $3.99, I can access the full book text, take notes, annotate, copy and paste, etc. on anything in the book.  Even better, I can access it from any internet connected browser. 

Not all books are available, but they give you a list of stuff you’ve bought in the past that you can upgrade.  Pretty cool…