Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2018

I'm just about done with my daily use experiment of Chrome, and am back to using Firefox right now. Firefox seems quicker, crashes less [for me], and, well, I'm probably just more used to the browser. Strangely, FF can activate Blogger markup shortcuts (like ctrl-i for italics) and Chrome, in my use, can't. (That said, on my G4 running OS X, FF 3 is too slow for me to use daily. There, I use Safari.)

So why would I use Chrome again? Seems obvious: Gears, although now that I look at it, Google has Gears for IE and FF! Gears is the interface that lets browsers go offline, for example, as in my post on Google Reader offering to make itself accessible offline. That's nice, and I'll bet that Chrome does Gears better than any other browser. It's designed to be a Gears host from the start.

Anybody, iirc, can code up a Gears application, yet I still have to think it's going to be Google first and Google best. This means Google went for Embrace and Extend, embracing the browser, and making an extension that ensures that your browser does a superset of everyone else's. That there's Gears for FF and IE and that anyone who learns can code for Gears makes it appear like Google's being altruistic, but the fact is that Google's not just dealing the cards, they're deciding which ones to print as well.

Google's continually more evil, imo, and it seems to be an evil born of success coupled with a desire to expand. Many of the things they do are Good Things (unobtrusive, almost useful ads, POP and IMAP Gmail access, making Gears accessible, if not Open and Free), but the bloom is off the rose for me.

By the way, the KHTML project now seems to be the most interesting Open-Corporate encounter in the software world. There's Safari, Chrome, OmniWeb, the vaporware that is Sun's JWebPane, and, of course, Konq all sharing the same parental codebase. What exactly is the sweetspot that makes KHTML so attractive, and so attractive versus Mozilla code or internally written code? (And let's remember that IE comes from Mosaic, even if MS is idiot enough to say that IE 7 has no Mosaic code (look, if you started with a codebase that large, unless you start over from scratch, the traces of the original are always going to be with you... Always.) I know some of it is obvious: Smaller codebase, good license, etc. But is the code particularly well written? Commented? What specifically makes it so much better than the alternatives that the last two major corporations (three if we count Sun, which we won't, yet) that released popular browsers have all used it?

Labels: chrome, firefox, gmail, Google, khtml, microsoft, mozilla

EDIT: I'm an idiot. You're a button away from hiding the Genius bar. Still, he's a shill.

I guess I could also call this one, "Where did my MiniStore go?!" (Note: I also own pretty much everything the Crowes have released, plus about 6 gigs of shows to trade, just not on this laptop.)

There have been a number of sites that have tried to provide you with a sort of personal radio station. I've enjoyed Pandora, and just today signed up for last.fm. You toss these sites a few artists you like, and they try to put together music like that artist that you might enjoy. Overall, I like both.

"Genius" brings this same function into iTunes, but with a particularly in-your-face, hard sell to go along with its gutted abilities. Let's start with the annoying: If you have Genius on, you have to have, afaict, the daggum "Genius Sidebar" visible. Folks, that ain't impressive. I shouldn't have to have advertisements in my single iTunes window to have iTunes suggest new music I might want to buy. Just provide the names of some songs or bands without yelling "BUY" or "$0.99" at me. There's a reason the menu items to turn Genius on & off has "Store" for its main heading.

(Also annoying: If you opt out of Genius and then back in, you start from scratch, which means waiting forever for it to go through your songs to piece 'em up. I'm guessing all this info is being stored server-side (in the "cloud" if you're down, I suppose) rather than in xml locally.)

Let's continue with the obvious: This ain't half as good as last.fm or Pandora. I can't even listen to the recommended songs from iTunes in full. This is less listening to a personalized radio station than, well, than browsing a music store.

The playlist idea where iTunes will lump songs you own into playlists of similar sounds is a decent one. That it will pull in songs others think are related helps too -- well, it'll pull them, that is, as long as you already own them. This might be a neat way to rediscover songs in your library you haven't heard in a while.

Yet I still wonder how much phoning home iTunes does when Genius is active. Strangely you have to have an iTunes account to use Genius, even though you're told no personally identifiable info is headed to Cupertino. And to end, well, now the songs you listen to most are going to be used to make Apple money. I know Bottle of Red Wine from Foamfoot is one of the best unknown Crowes tracks out there. Now Apple will too, and will try to sell it to the rest of you taller folk out there based on my uncredited recommendation.

Furthurmore, if I have to stare at the now vertical MiniStore to have the k3wl playlists, well, forget you, Genius. I can pick out songs I like all by my lonesome.

(What, no Bottle of Red Wine on iTunes from the Crowes? Can only get that trading tapes on Furthurnet or what have you? Shucks. Sorry bout that, Steve.)

So there's my rant. Hopefully I'll put together a readable opinion later.

Labels: coll_INT, Genius, iTunes, privacy

title: Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude.	descrip: One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
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Monday, September 29, 2008
-2 + -3 = +5? From MacWorld UK's Microsoft may buy Yahoo and AOL if the latter two merge: One reason Yahoo’s stock is as high as $19 is because of the extra revenues it says it getting from the Google deal. Yahoo’s stock could plunge to say, $15, if the Google deal gets rejected. ... While Yahoo’s founder and CEO Jerry Yang has made it clear he does not want to merge with Microsoft, it’s obvious a deal with AOL is more palatable... Moreover, AOL appears more desperate than ever to do a deal. Its business has continued to deteriorate. Time Warner said AOL’s ad revenues declined 16 percent to $1.1 billion in the most recent quarter... I'm lost. Why do two losers make a winner? This is the karma for giving up on Netscape, AOL!!! ;^) posted by ruffin at 9/29/2008 12:04:00 PM
0 comments
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Goma Journal - Some Congolese See Hope in a Caldron of Liquid Fire - NYTimes.com Goma Journal - Some Congolese See Hope in a Caldron of Liquid Fire - NYTimes.com: And tourism can provide jobs for hundreds, Mr. Rwema said. Each weekend, tour operators like him hire porters to carry tents and other gear up the mountain for $24, a hefty sum for Congo. He has hired several guides and started a school to teach them English. “Tourism can end war here in Congo,” he said. “If people are working, they are too busy to fight.” posted by ruffin at 9/25/2008 09:40:00 AM
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Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Putting the iPhone developer's agreement into perspective inside looking out: Look, developing for iPhone is just like developing for a Nintendo console. Nintendo owns the hardware. Nintendo owns the distribution mechanism. Nintendo doesn’t publish rules on what you can and cannot build. And they do just fine. Many developers still develop great stuff for Nintendo DS and Wii. Why? It’s successful and profitable. And Nintendo is far more of a pain in the ass than Apple. Common sense says: You’re not going to develop an Italian plumber 2D platform scroller for a Nintendo DS. Even if you were thinking about it, you’d talk to Apple about it first. posted by ruffin at 9/24/2008 08:10:00 AM
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Does SquirrelFish eat SETI@Home? From ye olde Surfin’ Safari: One of the things we did was to optimize within opcodes. Many JavaScript operations are highly polymorphic - they have different behavior in lots of different cases. Just by checking for the most common and fastest cases first, you can speed up JavaScript programs quite a bit. How much of the speed improvement comes at the [admittedly likely nearly unnoticeable] expense of a few free processor cycles? That is, has the browser swapped from a programming paradigm where applications only request processor time when they "really need it", and then spin like crazy to one where they now make use of what seems to be down time to perform technically unneeded operations for future [from the user's perspective] speed? Or, to put this yet another way, are applications becoming more selfish with the processor when nobody's looking? I've noticed that Chrome is pretty processor intensive in the background. Though much of this seems to be related to Flash ads, why doesn't a Chrome window put itself to sleep when it's not visible? The move would mirror the way that programs have increasingly become RAM hogs in ways that they would have never done if RAM hadn't become cheap and available (thanks, Steve). Moore's Law has become increasingly unimportant of late, pushed only by games, Vista, and iMovie, and it would seem that everyone's starting to jump onto SETI@Home's excess processor bandwagon. Or I could have completely misunderstood what Hyatt was saying. Likely the latter. posted by ruffin at 9/24/2008 08:03:00 AM
3 comments
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Note to self: The Truth Laid Bear Note to self: The Truth Laid Bear posted by ruffin at 9/17/2008 12:00:00 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
I'm broke. I think I'll borrow a dollar from myself. Huh? (from Forbes.com): Making a bridge loan to itself buys a limited amount of time to scrounge up more capital. Labels: Other Stuff posted by ruffin at 9/16/2008 12:32:00 PM
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Thursday, September 11, 2008
MacMerc.com: So dazzling is iTunes 8's Genius, that its new visualizer is overlooked MacMerc.com has a neat guide to the new iTunes visualizer: M - Changes the mode, cycling through what it has to offer ... N - Toggles 'Nebula Mode' which adds colored clouds to the mix...maybe they're processor hogs and need to be removed on slower systems? L - Toggles the camera lock that keep the point of view grooving to the tunes More on Merc. I haven't seen that N does much yet, but maybe I'm losing it. posted by ruffin at 9/11/2008 04:59:00 PM
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Very small houses. http://www.smallhousestyle.com/ New to Small House Style? Enjoy your visit. You may want to subscribe to the Small House Style RSS feed in your reader or via Feedburner. Thanks for visiting! Labels: noteToSelf posted by ruffin at 9/11/2008 12:41:00 PM
0 comments
Chrome: Google's Embrace and Extend I'm just about done with my daily use experiment of Chrome, and am back to using Firefox right now. Firefox seems quicker, crashes less [for me], and, well, I'm probably just more used to the browser. Strangely, FF can activate Blogger markup shortcuts (like ctrl-i for italics) and Chrome, in my use, can't. (That said, on my G4 running OS X, FF 3 is too slow for me to use daily. There, I use Safari.) So why would I use Chrome again? Seems obvious: Gears, although now that I look at it, Google has Gears for IE and FF! Gears is the interface that lets browsers go offline, for example, as in my post on Google Reader offering to make itself accessible offline. That's nice, and I'll bet that Chrome does Gears better than any other browser. It's designed to be a Gears host from the start. Anybody, iirc, can code up a Gears application, yet I still have to think it's going to be Google first and Google best. This means Google went for Embrace and Extend, embracing the browser, and making an extension that ensures that your browser does a superset of everyone else's. That there's Gears for FF and IE and that anyone who learns can code for Gears makes it appear like Google's being altruistic, but the fact is that Google's not just dealing the cards, they're deciding which ones to print as well. Google's continually more evil, imo, and it seems to be an evil born of success coupled with a desire to expand. Many of the things they do are Good Things (unobtrusive, almost useful ads, POP and IMAP Gmail access, making Gears accessible, if not Open and Free), but the bloom is off the rose for me. By the way, the KHTML project now seems to be the most interesting Open-Corporate encounter in the software world. There's Safari, Chrome, OmniWeb, the vaporware that is Sun's JWebPane, and, of course, Konq all sharing the same parental codebase. What exactly is the sweetspot that makes KHTML so attractive, and so attractive versus Mozilla code or internally written code? (And let's remember that IE comes from Mosaic, even if MS is idiot enough to say that IE 7 has no Mosaic code (look, if you started with a codebase that large, unless you start over from scratch, the traces of the original are always going to be with you... Always.) I know some of it is obvious: Smaller codebase, good license, etc. But is the code particularly well written? Commented? What specifically makes it so much better than the alternatives that the last two major corporations (three if we count Sun, which we won't, yet) that released popular browsers have all used it? Labels: chrome, firefox, gmail, Google, khtml, microsoft, mozilla posted by ruffin at 9/11/2008 07:49:00 AM
0 comments
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Apple's Genius is just another shill EDIT: I'm an idiot. You're a button away from hiding the Genius bar. Still, he's a shill. I guess I could also call this one, "Where did my MiniStore go?!" (Note: I also own pretty much everything the Crowes have released, plus about 6 gigs of shows to trade, just not on this laptop.) There have been a number of sites that have tried to provide you with a sort of personal radio station. I've enjoyed Pandora, and just today signed up for last.fm. You toss these sites a few artists you like, and they try to put together music like that artist that you might enjoy. Overall, I like both. "Genius" brings this same function into iTunes, but with a particularly in-your-face, hard sell to go along with its gutted abilities. Let's start with the annoying: If you have Genius on, you have to have, afaict, the daggum "Genius Sidebar" visible. Folks, that ain't impressive. I shouldn't have to have advertisements in my single iTunes window to have iTunes suggest new music I might want to buy. Just provide the names of some songs or bands without yelling "BUY" or "$0.99" at me. There's a reason the menu items to turn Genius on & off has "Store" for its main heading. (Also annoying: If you opt out of Genius and then back in, you start from scratch, which means waiting forever for it to go through your songs to piece 'em up. I'm guessing all this info is being stored server-side (in the "cloud" if you're down, I suppose) rather than in xml locally.) Let's continue with the obvious: This ain't half as good as last.fm or Pandora. I can't even listen to the recommended songs from iTunes in full. This is less listening to a personalized radio station than, well, than browsing a music store. The playlist idea where iTunes will lump songs you own into playlists of similar sounds is a decent one. That it will pull in songs others think are related helps too -- well, it'll pull them, that is, as long as you already own them. This might be a neat way to rediscover songs in your library you haven't heard in a while. Yet I still wonder how much phoning home iTunes does when Genius is active. Strangely you have to have an iTunes account to use Genius, even though you're told no personally identifiable info is headed to Cupertino. And to end, well, now the songs you listen to most are going to be used to make Apple money. I know Bottle of Red Wine from Foamfoot is one of the best unknown Crowes tracks out there. Now Apple will too, and will try to sell it to the rest of you taller folk out there based on my uncredited recommendation. Furthurmore, if I have to stare at the now vertical MiniStore to have the k3wl playlists, well, forget you, Genius. I can pick out songs I like all by my lonesome. (What, no Bottle of Red Wine on iTunes from the Crowes? Can only get that trading tapes on Furthurnet or what have you? Shucks. Sorry bout that, Steve.) So there's my rant. Hopefully I'll put together a readable opinion later. Labels: coll_INT, Genius, iTunes, privacy posted by ruffin at 9/09/2008 07:46:00 PM
0 comments
Wealthy Friends? Become a SUPER-Trailblazer From the Times' Straining to Reach Money Goal, Obama Presses Donors: A recent e-mail message to McCain fund-raisers unveiled new incentives to spur them in their final push. For the primary, anyone who raised $100,000 or more earned the title of Trailblazer, while those who raised $250,000 or more became Innovators. Now Trailblazers who raise another $100,000 for the party for the general election can become Super-Trailblazers, and Innovators who raise another $250,000 earn the title of Super-Innovators. Now if that ain't big news... It's amazing what people will do for titles. If you didn't think WoW carried over into the "real world", guess again. I used to think the people spending hours on gaming hours to get honorary titles were crazy, but now it appears such dedication for meaningless rewards is a true life skill. sigh So let's start giving to McCain now on behalf of MyFreakinName so that I, ur, we all can be SUPER TRAILBLAZERS!!! Labels: Other Stuff posted by ruffin at 9/09/2008 08:29:00 AM
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Monday, September 08, 2008
Incognito mode in Chrome has a cute icon, anyway What's "Incognito Mode"? From Incognito Window (aka P0rn Mode): Think of incognito as a 'privacy mode' to prevent tracking from those local and also by websites sharing data about you. Since the advent of browsing the web in the 90's, parents have been slapping their kids around for their surfing habits.� Spouses have been busting each other and using computer data in court cases for custody battle.� Incognito mode throws a wrench into the whole spy game by hiding your tracks. This is probably the most revolutionary feature to be built into current browsers since pop-up blockers.� We say current browsers because� Microsoft has been testing a similar feature in Internet Explorer v8 (Beta 2) called 'In Private' mode which also does not save browsing, search history, cookies, form data or passwords with automatic clearing of browser cache. Might be worth pointing out that Safari has had just such a feature ("Private browsing" or some such) for a while, now, as well as the "Reset Safari" menu item, which, if it actually does what it says, should render anything you do in cognito [sic] mode moot too. I've kinda wondered if that was a smart idea from Apple. What happens if you surf in private mode, reset the browser, and your spouse or parent still bustifies you? Isn't Apple left holding the bag, or at least responsible for your holding it? Seems like unnecessary liability for browser makers. Cute icon, anyhow, though it ain't no dancing moon. Labels: browsers, chrome, privacy, safari posted by ruffin at 9/08/2008 07:06:00 PM
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Sunday, September 07, 2008
Why Chrome Won't^H^H^H^H^H WIll Crash Windows Mr. Beal's cleverly named businessweek.com piece, Why Chrome Won't Crash Windows, misses a key point in understanding Chrome's importance. First, a quote: It's our infatuation with the Google brand, more than the technology inside, that will boost Chrome's market share and further extend Google in our daily Web activities. As for being a Windows or Internet Explorer killer, don't count on it. Did Gmail kill Hotmail? Will Google Docs kill Office? Did Google kill Yahoo? How about Google Reader -- it's killed nearly every stand-alone RSS reader I've tried. Now each of these use the browser as their host platform. I've already shown Chrome's ability to take Google Reader offline. Does Firefox do this? Not yet... If Chrome can extend Gmail, Reader, Docs, Maps, search, Scholar, Books, etc etc etc onto your desktop, the OS will finally become a commoditized complement. This kills Windows. Rather, it negates the advantage one OS has over another, in large and almost exclusive part. Again, Google is with chrome making Java's play, and they are, to date, doing it successfully. There's more than just a cute icon to be gleaned from Google's portrait of Java applets as a bunch of dancing moons. What Google is saying is that where Sun failed so miserably and laughably in Web 1.0, Google's winning in version two. Google is killing the OS in ways Sun wanted to with Java and couldn't. It'll be interesting to see if Google can succeed. Labels: browsers, chrome, dancing moons, firefox, gmail, Google, java, microsoft, web 2.0 shiite, windows posted by ruffin at 9/07/2008 08:31:00 PM
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The NFL owns your name Okay, this is a subject that takes up way too much of my life, but has yet not been the main point of a post on mfn. Oh well. From ESPN: Contacted Sunday by The Associated Press, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said, 'He has a financial obligation to Reebok, which produces the jerseys available to fans. That has to be resolved before the on-field jersey can be changed. 'The same obligation exists for any player that changes his number or name.' Okay, the number is fair enough. I know Kobe had to wait to change from 24 to 8. I understand that the league might own your number and your jersey -- and its likeness. But your name? It makes you wonder again about some of Warren Sapp's quickly derided comments some years back. How can an employer own -- and then license -- your name? Some things shouldn't be ownable. (I almost said that some things shouldn't be commercialized, but heck, if you want to change your last name to SprintCellular.com, be my guest.) Labels: NFL, Other Stuff posted by ruffin at 9/07/2008 06:53:00 PM
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Official Gmail Blog: New Gmail code base now for IE6 too Official Gmail Blog: New Gmail code base now for IE6 too: "Over the last few months, we've been working with the IE engineers at Microsoft to address these issues: they released a critical update to their JavaScript implementation that fixed a performance problem with how the script engine allocates and frees memory. We also made small simplifications to the UI when it runs in IE6 to improve stability. For example, we removed the drop shadow from contact pop-ups and the rounded corners from chat moles, both of which tended to cause problems in IE6." posted by ruffin at 9/07/2008 06:48:00 PM
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Friday, September 05, 2008
What the DTV converter voucher program missed -- subsidizing antennas Well, I've whined about DTV a bit here, particularly reception, and I finally figured out the program. The government needed to not only subsidize the converter boxes (the selection for which is still abysmal) but also better antennas. I finally gave in, after going through a couple of sets of rabbit ears, and shelled out for an UHF antenna that got awfully good recommendations online. Right now, it's inside the house, on a table next to the TV, and it's already heads and shoulders above the reception we had before. For under $40 shipped, I got the Antennas Direct DB2 Multi Directional HDTV Antenna. Before, I used to have to move the antenna to get different stations. Now, without even aiming the antenna, just plopping it where it fit easily, we can even watch the station that'd stopped coming in fairly well. Let's assume this antenna makes DTV a viable choice for getting OTA broadcasts. There are about a billion ways to critique that the gov't left getting a good antenna out of their literature and pork payments to Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and Circuit City. It's obvious to me now that DTV is more difficult to receive over the air because of its very low fault tolerance. There's no white noise in the picture anymore. Instead, we get drops (pixelated pictures and no sound) so bad that the TV is unwatchable. How do folks that don't have Internet access supposed to find out what's a decent antenna? How can we assume they have $40 to shell out for a better antenna? (And, one thing I'm ignoring for now, what if their local stations broadcast in VHF, which this antenna doesn't handle? The VHF antennas with similarly good reviews are even more expensive.) Again, the converter box voucher program only went half-way. Getting DTV takes more than your standard rabbit ears in my limited experience, supported by my understanding of how it works (again, the low fault tolerance), and the government (that is us, the people who it represents) should feel some responsibility to ensure that people without the knowledge (if only because of a lack of Internet access) or resources to buy what they need get it and continue receiving the (albeit rare) crucial information about their communities the television provides. Seriously, our household nearly went the basic cable route thanks to the bad rabbit ear experience. Glad I held out, but I'm sure a significant number aren't. Labels: DTV posted by ruffin at 9/05/2008 08:41:00 PM
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Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Install Photosynth take two Even more nice Mac verbiage from the Install Photosynth page: Operating System: Only Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) and Windows Vista are supported at this time. Running Windows on a Mac? Photosynth runs under some VM configurations. Check out our help site for an updated list. What's the world coming to? I mean, I think we all know that Microsoft hates what they want to term Naked PCs, and, well, most Macs running Windows are -- again, just conjecture here on my part -- running illegal copies, at best from people "concurrently licensing" the copies they bought for other hardware. But here, a MS site is all but begging you to using Vista on a Mac using a VM. Hrm. Photosynth must be phoning home too. posted by ruffin at 9/03/2008 07:47:00 PM
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Hydra's online version of Structure, Sign, Play Structure, Sign, Play: 'Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences' Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, pp 278-294 Not so fast, hydra.umn.edu. There are a number of issues with the translation when compared to Bass'. Here are two examples of differences from page 279 of Bass (particular attn to the last few words of each phrase)... Hydra: "If this is so, the whole history of the concept of structure, before the rupture I spoke of..." Google: "If this is so, the entire history of the concept of structure, before the rupture of which we are speaking..." Hydra: "... names related to fundamentals, to principles, or to the [etext has "I" here] center have always designated the constant of a presence..." Google: "... names related to fundamental, to principles or to the center have always designated an invariable presence..." It would appear Hydra's isn't Alan Bass' translation, but one from The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man, where editors are given, but no translator that I can find quickly. The book that that link goes to (which in turn borrows from the book mentioned), is A Postmodern Reader, editors Joseph P. Natoli and Linda Hutcheon, Published by SUNY Press, 1993 with an ISBN 0791416372, 9780791416372 (info copied liberally from Google Books). posted by ruffin at 9/03/2008 07:41:00 PM
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Nations angry at ISO following dropped OOXML appeals - Business - Macworld UK Nations angry at ISO following dropped OOXML appeals - Business - Macworld UK: Office and Microsoft's Windows OS face competition from open-source and open standards-based software in developing countries, where it is often more cost-effective to use alternatives to proprietary software. I'm sorry, why is it "more cost effective" in "developing countries" and not elsewhere? Because the developed countries have somehow already trained their citizens in the use of MS Word? posted by ruffin at 9/03/2008 03:58:00 PM
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Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Gears and Offline Google Reader Welp, there we go. The first obvious, Chrome specific integration, which allows me to run Google Reader offline. Neat. I wonder now if Chrome isn't the source of the rumor that Apple was going to release Safari in some fashion to allow websites, like Google Reader, to be saved as their own WebKit apps. Labels: browsers, Google posted by ruffin at 9/02/2008 09:59:00 PM
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That Civ Feel: Google does it again Right after releasing Chrome, Google goes and updates ~~iPhoto~~ Picasa too: Today, we're rolling out major technology upgrades to both Picasa and Picasa Web Albums. As you might have guessed, these are largely focused on how we share and enjoy our photos with others. I used to enjoying playing Civilization, a world domination game, too much. Every time you thought you had a certain civilization under control and you started edging your military a bit closer to their city, WHAM, all of a sudden military units started flooding out of the city like fire ants. You'd had no idea that while you were spending all your resources building up your military that they'd had the same idea. Lured in by the expectation of an easy assault, you now had to sheepishly slink away. I have to think that Microsoft's IE 8 is feeling that a little, and that Apple's Safari on Windows is feeling this Civ feeling in a big way now. Heck, Google even took WebKit and did it better. Now, I wonder how much Picasa has gotten... It already performs one heck of a lot better than what's admittedly a one-generation obsolete version of iPhoto. Price is a bit better, too. Hammurabi Jobs, you're done. Speaking of Chrome, why doesn't ctrl-L blockquote in BlogThis!? I'm also surprised that Chrome doesn't have a menu bar, depending on previous training to, say, know how to search the Omnibar (Control-K) or print (Ctrl-P) or view downloads (Ctrl-J). Labels: browsers, Google, picasa posted by ruffin at 9/02/2008 09:30:00 PM
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Chromige Well, it does seem faster. I've started to use Safari as my main browser on OS X, but in Windows, Safari isn't near as rock solid an application. If Chrome can give me so little as a reliable WebKit implementation, I'm golden. Nice to see it underlines misspelled words. Honestly, I'm a little surprised that the load time for Gmail isn't shorter with Chrome. Why not go ahead and store as much of that page as possible in the browser by default? It's your party, Google. Bias yourself! Labels: browsers, chrome, Google posted by ruffin at 9/02/2008 04:38:00 PM
0 comments
Monday, September 01, 2008
Yeah, but what is Chrome phoning home? From 9 to 5 Mac: The big news of the day? Google announces Google Chrome, a WebKit (yes the very same Webkit that Safari uses) based-browser. So far, my favorite part of the comic is the little dancing moon on the bottom of page 13. Ain't he cute?! Man, I loved Java applets; all that potential, all the fear from MS, and what does it produce? Dancing moons. Very nice. So what's Google's angle, other than potentially saving paying out a tiny bit in Google search bar licensing fees? Hrm... I do wonder how much more information this browser will provide Google that they don't/can't get from clients currently. And if I have to hear about one more different brand o' Javascript engine coming out, I'm going to puke. EDIT: Well, here's some of what's potentially being phoned, and also how Google hopes to help make crrrrrrrazy cash. And here's our favorite dancing moon, used for good effect elsewhere in the comic. (The comic, btw, is especially geeky. Does that primarily reflect who is supposed to be using it, or is that who is supposed to start programming for it? I couldn't finish the comic "for fun," so hopefully I didn't miss too much.) Labels: browsers, dancing moons, Google posted by ruffin at 9/01/2008 10:19:00 PM
0 comments