More stuff:: About the Site | CSS Switcher | Blog | Forums

Subscribe via RSS 2.0CMDNotepad

It's marvelous! It's educational! It's mildly toxic!

Chrome is Shiny

posted by CMD on 2008-09-02 at 22:54:02

It seems I was late, as I didn't hear about Chrome until this morning, but Google's new browser is upon us. I offer my opinion as a web developer, and as a guy with a blog, about what I think after test-driving this baby.

First of all, I'm still on XP, so I don't get the glassy, transparent background, but the UI is still sweet like sweets. Clean, uncluttered, straight to-the-point. I like that in a browser. I'm not a fan of the IE7 style buttonized application menus, but I'm sure it's familiar to enough people to make sense. The pop-up status bar is also pretty pretty - leaving the area free for the page and appearing only when needed.

As far as the techy stuff is concerned, Google basically covered it pretty thoroughly in their web-toon press release, so I'm not going to get too into it. Basically, it's blazing fast. The multi-function URL bar is easy to use, the text-boxes have a built-in spell checker, all that useful stuff, but the most important part of a browser is the rendering accuracy. Well, I'm happy to report that it's WebKit, so it does just fine in that area.

And, like any browser should, it has a DOM explorer and Javascript console for us nerdy-geeks. This one is more similar to Opera's Dragonfly or IE's "Developer Toolbar", in that it can't as of yet edit the DOM model or CSS attributes and update the in-browser page in real-time as Firefox's Firebug and Web Developer extensions can, but it's a decent start.

There are a few features that don't seem to be in there at this stage, one of the most prominant being an integrated RSS reader. I do hope that it's a planned feature, as RSS is a large part of my online experience, and I like to handle all of that in-browser. Also, the DOM Inspector tool has a "Dock to Window" button that doesn't actually do anything yet.

All went pretty well - I downloaded the application during some down-time at the office at 2:19pm today, and importing my bookmarks and history from Firefox was both quick and complete. So I starting dinking around on teh Interwebs, putting it through its paces. I of course looked at my own sites first, then, since I was at the office, started looking at my company's sites to "ensure compatibility" or something like that. Then I went to a third-party site to continue browsing, and I noticed something.

There are ads on these pages...

At that moment, a question struck me - will Google, a company funded largely by the sales of targeted ad placement services, allow a feature in a browser that they control which would block those ads from being displayed? IE has the IEPro extension which includes ad-blocking, Opera has it built-in, Firefox has the peerless Ad Block Plus extension, but to my knowledge, none of these companies have any real stake in ads being displayed.

If no ad-blocking support is planned, it will be an absolute deal-breaker for me, regardless of the unique and innovative technology behind the browser. It's my computer, my browser window, my web experience, and I will be the soverign controller of what content is and is not displayed during my browsing experience.

So yeah, time will tell I suppose. For now, the Google Chrome Beta is a fantastically impressive piece of Kit, and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

Posted in: Techy Chat

1 comment on this article.

On RSS and Firefox extensions

posted by CMD on 2008-08-31 at 21:42:31

I was chatting with a coworker the other day, and he made a passing mention on how he wished Firefox would alert you when you got a new RSS feed so you didn't have to keep checking the Live Bookmark folder in the Bookmarks menu - remembering which one was the last one you read to determine if there are any new messages to view, that sort of thing. So I told him about the extension I used for RSS subscription notification - Brief - and he has now become my second convert. [Evil]

However, this got me thinking - is the Firefox way really the best way?

I've been in countless discussions with people of different browser persuasions who criticise Firefox for being the open canvas that it is - basically with Firefox, you get the base level of competency for web features, with an endless repository of extensions to flesh out your browser experience the way you think it best. Other browsers - this argument most often comes from followers of Opera - are complete out-of-the-box, with built in and fully-featured integrated components for these web technologies.

Me, I'm a hunter. I like to search out, try a bunch of options - I tried both Sage and Beatnik before I settled on Brief - then decide which one fits the way I like things to be done, which makes the Firefox way perfect for me. Not everyone is like this, though. That coworker of mine? - He's a professional web developer and a PHP genius, he just never looked through the extension repository for something to make his RSS experience better. If a professional web guy can miss an enhancement to his browser of choice, how much more so can the non-technical user?

Firefox is customizable beyond belief, and I think they've taken a few good steps toward making add-ons more accessible, what with the new integrated add-on browser they introduced with FF3, but I still think awareness needs to be raised further.

The main problem, I think, is extensions need to be marketed as necessities, because some of them are. People are used to most add-ons being just frivolous extras - with things like the Mac OS, Opera, Vista, Google Desktop et cetera all having fun little widgets, 80% of which are practically useless. With Firefox, add-ons are like patches - adding real, useful features for an enhanced browsing experience.

For example: a fellow student shared with me last week an add-on for Firefox he'd found called Zotero. It's basically an integrated Internet research collation tool that allows you to save, organize, search, and cite online sources for research paper writing right there in your browser as you're doing the research. As a college student, this extension could prove invaluable in the future - I haven't had to write any papers since this tool was introduced to me, but I look forward to trying it out.

Compared to the glut of widgets out there, Firefox extensions are masterpieces. People just need to be made aware that they're there. If anyone should feel their Firefox experience lacking in some respect, Just Search It. Odds are, there'll be at least three things in there to change it three different ways, whichever you'd prefer.

On the subject of RSS, the Dictionary.com Word of the Day RSS feed is awesome. I found my new favorite word through it earlier this month: vituperate - to overwhelm with wordy abuse. [Wink]

Thanks for reading.

Posted in: Daily Chat, Techy Chat

0 comments on this article.

Guess what! It's a Dan-Update. :D

posted by CMD on 2008-08-24 at 00:22:19

Howdy, peoples of the Internet! It has been some time since I spoke to you last. Back then, the world was happy, the sun was shining, and the forums had a modicum of activity on them. These days, though, no one posts on the forums, not even their master. The blog has been all but forsaken, as its creator struggled with life and the living thereof.

I have a tendency to get caught up in a haphazard sleeping schedule, one in which I don't fall asleep until 4am-5am, and don't wake up until after noon. It's not that I'm sleeping an egregiously long time, it's just that I'm sleeping at weird times. Well, while I can do most of my job whenever I want, there are certain days where I have to go into the office, and those days I have to be awake during the "day" day. It's on these days when I undercut myself with 3-4 hours of sleep, then support myself with energy drinks so I can stay awake for the 45-minute drive back home from school after 9pm.

You can see where this is going. In fact, I think I've related this story before a few times. I wear myself out - half-asleep during the day, half-awake through the night - and I end up spending the bulk of the day zoning out, watching YouTube videos or something. I'd try to get some extra rest by going to bed at a "normal" time, but I'd only end up getting three hours of sleep anyway, waking up at 2am and unable to find rest again. Then I'd try staking awake for longer until a "normal" time, only to sleep for 10 or more hours that night as my body tried to recuperate.

This vicious cycle went on for two months - the longest it's ever been, and a length I pray it never approaches again. It is during these two months that the blog first fell silent. I didn't have anything of significance to write about, and I didn't have the clarity of mind to do anything anyway. Work suffered, school suffered, I suffered.

"But the blog has been empty for three months!" you shout aloud, oppressively close to my ear. Indeed, it has. After the two-month breakdown, there was a one-month time of frantically trying to catch up on the work and school that I was too zoned-out to do earlier. In short, busy busy busy, and all of my own doing.

I was planning to write my next blog post on the use of Javascript to simulate AJAX in the lesser-equipped browser on the PSP, but I haven't been able to finish that application yet. I don't want to write about it until it's done, because I plan to post the source code itself in the article. In the mean time, though, something else has come up:

It's-a my birthday!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, upon this day the 24th of August, Dan Larson turns 24. Can I hear a "Wo0t!"? [Wink]

So yeah, that's where I've been, what I've been up to, and why I've been so quiet. Thanks for reading, and thanks for keepin' my live bookmark in your list all this time. [Smile]

Posted in: Daily Chat

4 comments on this article.

Main Navigation