The Browser War is flaring up once again with the release of Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a new browser based on many freely available open source components such as WebKit and Firefox. Chrome is bare bones, chromeless, browser with very little UI fluff and decoration. It is interesting to note that the UI for the Google browser took a note from the companies colorful logo, the Chrome UI is very cartoon-like with a blue pastel color scheme.

Many of the features that are high lighted in Chrome are not necessarily revolutionary, instead I would say that the Google browser is retro-evolutionary. Chrome basically reduced the browser to the location bar, tabs, and content page.

The most touted features in Chrome are its crash control, incognito mode, and safe browsing. Chrome runs each web page on its own process so that if one page fails only that page is effected. Incognito mode is like Safari’s Private Browsing, aka Porn Mode, it allows you to surf the web without caching cookies and history of the sites you visit on your local computer. It’s safe browsing feature will help you to identify web sites with malicious code or applications. Many of these features are not entirely novel, so why would Google go to the efforts of creating a new browser?

What I think is novel is that Google decided to release yet another browser. The browser space is already crowded with Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, and Flock to name just a few. It is clear that Google will align Chrome with its properties, search, applications, development tools, and user generated content sites. Seeing Google take this approach I wonder if other companies follow suit and release internet browsers that compliment their business. Can you imagine a custom browser from Adobe, Mcaffee, Oracle, Amazon, or EBay?

Via Noise to Signal

Technorati Tags: google, chrome, firefox, ie, browser, adobe, oracle

On this month’s issue of Fast Company, Robert Scoble’s business article was a stream, or better yet, a dribble of blabbering twitter messages. And the Scobleizer bunny gets paid for this. Since twitter does not archieve and make available all your tweets I thought I do a scoble and blog my tweets for posterity. In this meta-moment, I repost some of the tweets about twitter itself.

• Data mining my Twitter feed.
• If half of your tweets are about the power of twitter, are you really twittering? In a room full of evangelist, don’t preach to the choir.
• I have heard of drunk dialing, but have you heard of drunk twitteringaling?
• Is twitter archive working? The oldest twit I have is from May.
• There should be a way to post on all microblogging sites at once, like tumblr, twitter, jaiku, personal blog, del.icio.us, identi.ca, etc…
• I am having a “twitter moment”, I am stressing out and temporary disabled any and all job functions.
• I think I am responsible for twitter’s scalability and availability problems.
• New followers, sorry if I haven’t followed you yet… Twitter sometimes playa hates!
• Is twitter the new friendster?

I frequently tweet and update my social status. If you like to follow m or befriend me, feel free to hit me up on twitter, identi.ca, Pownce, and/or FriendFeed.

Technorati Tags: twitter, scoble, scobleizer, scobleizing, meta-moment, identi.ca, tumblr, jaiku

On this month’s issue of Fast Company, Robert Scoble’s business article was a stream, or better yet, a dribble of blabbering twitter messages. And the Scobleizer bunny gets paid for this. Since twitter does not achieve and make available all your tweets I thought I do a scoble and blog my tweets for posterity. Here I repost just some of my favorite tweets regarding software development and programming.

• You may know Big O notation, but have you heard of Big H notation.
• I use Big H notation to describe the level of a hack. H(n!) describes a MacGyver level hack.
• Similar to Big O or Big H notation there is a Big F notation to measure and describe the level of FAIL.
• Not every cloud computing initiative has a silver lining.
• The Java version of a Hello World example Web Services using Axis 2 is just about ten lines of code, 55 jars, and 20MB war file. Fail.
• Rails is not just opinionated software, it is fascist software.
• Google App Engine is not opinionated enough.
• Excusing oneself for incompetence by saying ‘my server crashed’ is a valid a reason as saying ‘my dog eat my homework.’
• Backward compatibility is not just about code but also applies to usability. Backward compatible is about implies to user expectations.
• Why don’t software engineers get royalties on the software applications that they write, like Writers Guild of America?
• There cannot be a killer app without a killer community.

I frequently tweet and update my social status. If you like to follow m or befriend me, feel free to hit me up on twitter, identi.ca, Pownce, and/or FriendFeed.

Technorati Tags: twitter, scoble, scobleizer, scobleizing, software, development, softdev, social

On this month’s issue of Fast Company, Robert Scoble’s business article was a stream, or better yet, a dribble of blabbering twitter messages. And the Scobleizer bunny gets paid for this. I don’t scobleize but I did want to share my stream of unconsciousness, captured on twitter, regarding upgrading the firmware in first generation iPhone.

• Having issues upgrading to iPhone 2.0. The download of the update fails at the last byte.
• Just upgraded to iPhone 2.0. Downloading free apps, so far nothing to write home about.
• iPhone 2.0 is the new Windows 98, its slow and crashes way to often
• iPhone zombie apps: I delete apps from my phone but they keep coming back when I sync with my computer. Really annoying.
• After I updated several iPhone apps via my iPhone, it stopped syncing all email accounts. Damn you iPhone 2.0 - 1.3.
• iPhone 2.0 feels more like 2.0 - 1.3 = 0.7.
• iPhone, now with iCrash and iSlow.
• Updating an app via the iPhone displaces the app’s location in the pages/tabs. Seems to update location to first available space.
• Upgraded to iPhone 2.0.1 erased some of my user settings, notably my location setting.

If you had similar experience upgrading your iPhone or would just like to befriend me, check out my twitter or identi.ca profile. As always, feel free to leave a comment here as well.

When the iPhone first came out in the summer of 2007, I knew to wait at a minimum six months so as to give Apple enough time to work out all the kinks in the phone’s firmware. My wait paid of, especially since during that time the price of the iPhone dropped significantly. When the Livescribe Pulse Smartpen became widely available, I told myself that I would again wait at a minimum six months for all the kinks to be worked out, especially since I had never before heard of Livescribe. Unfortunately, when I saw a live demo at Target I broke down and shelled out for a 2GB Pulse on the spot. The Pulse lets you record the sounds and background noise around you as you jot notes down. What makes the Pulse so interesting is that you can play back the recording simply by clicking on the notebook where you had written. The pen will playback the audio recorded near the time when you wrote the area that you tapped. The Pulse integrates and plays back the written word with the spoken word.
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I have been meaning to use Wordle with some of my own writing. Wordle creates word art given a RSS feed or a text sample that is almost like a stylized cliff notes or synopsis of the document it analyzed. I was able to create the following image with the text from Code Rage 2.0: Rants of Code and Other Essays. Enjoy.

You may find other Wordle renderings of Code Rage 2.0 here and here.

Technorati Tags: wordle, code rage, art, app engine