There is much other browsers can learn from Chrome, but I think
Chrome is too simplified for most advanced users and those are the people who will most appreciate the big improvements. Having tabs in separate processes seems to be a very good idea. And being able to disconnect and reconnect tabs is convenient. Memory usage does seem pretty comparable to Firefox 3.

Popups and spyware problems are not improved much, if any, over Firefox 3. It does block some popups, but I still found plenty. One seemed triggered by Flash ads. I got one when clicking unrelated links on a hacker search engine. And I got one that seems to be a javascript redirect on a compromised blog that warned me I had viruses and is very effective. The same site twice convinced my mom that she had viruses. If you click anywhere on the site, two EXEs are downloaded automatically. With Firefox, only one was downloaded. The only thing Chrome did better was not allow the site to hide the browser window by resizing it and moving it to the corner behind the popup dialog. Firefox can be set for that too.

Chrome is missing an easy way to reopen accidentally closed tabs. You can do it from the Opera Speed Dial like home page, but why not from the context menu when you click on the tab bar? Having close buttons on each tab makes it too easy to close them. I set Firefox to show close buttons only on the active tab.

I didn’t do any official timing tests, but to me Chrome feels slower than Firefox. Loading javascript heavy pages might be faster, Gmail did load pretty fast, but loading regular HTML and images seemed slower.

The best part of Chrome is that it will advance web standards. Google’s Chrome comic explains how they test page rendering automatically on tons of the most popular pages found in their search engine. Any improvement they make will be able to benefit Apple Safari’s WebKit core which eventually works its way back KDE’s KHTML in Konqueror.

Chrome is an extremely polished beta, but if you use anything more than the back button on your browser, there is nothing really great about it that will convince people to switch. IE8 beta looks pretty good too, but I will be sticking with Firefox. Mozilla keeps actively working on Firefox. From past experience with Google software, I wouldn’t be surprised if they get board with the project and development stalls for long periods. Google’s Browser Sync was long neglected and is being discontinued. Google’s Picasa is finally nearing a beta for 3.0 but has not had a major update since June 2006 when 2.5 was released. Hopefully this one is better, but take a look at their Mac and Linux support if you are waiting for this browser on other operating systems.

Update: I gave Chrome another try after it was developed a bit more and started using it more and more. I love the speed improvements and use it 90% of the time now even though I miss a bunch of Firefox extensions and Greasemonkey scripts.

Today my Cats Can’t Read photo was posted to Reddit by PaperLess. I don’t think it made the front page, but it did do well on the Pics page, making it up to at least number 6 today. Back on February 16, 2008, this shot had 3,676 views and 33 faves which I thought was pretty good. When I first learned of it being on Reddit on March 10, about eight hours after it was posted, it has 24,176 views and 44 faves. Now, around 13 hours since it was linked, it is up to 32,022 views and 47 faves. According to Flickr, there have been over 28,000 views from Reddit users in just over half a day. Thanks for posting it, PaperLess.

I do have one request though of anyone who posts links to photos. Please link the post to the main photo page, not the original size or the JPEG itself. I often find posts directly to JPEGs, that is not allowed by the Flickr TOS and is rude. The photographer gets no credit for the image that way. Linking to the larger size pages is better because the photographer’s name and copyright information is there, but the viewers won’t likely see the caption under the photo or the photographer’s other work. Reddit users don’t have a reputation for exploring a site that has been linked. Even though I have had over 28,000 views on this photo alone today, views on the rest of my photos and my Photostream are maybe at most very slightly above average. I do have a lot of other good stuff people would enjoy and usually so do other photographers that get linked.

If you ever do come across a JPEG only photo on Flickr’s servers, this bookmarklet will take you to the photo page (if I can figure out where I got it I will add a credit). I use it frequently. Often you will find other interesting work by the same photographer.

For those that don’t know, Reddit is a site like Slashdot or Digg. You have to be a computer geek to have heard of them, but they are huge in the world of computer geeks and programmers. I get most of my news and interesting links from them. On Digg and Reddit, people post links they find interesting and they get voted up or down so the really interesting ones make it to the front page. As new stuff becomes more interesting they move down the list to make room. Unless its really good, most stuff doesn’t stay near the top for even a day. The amount of traffic these sites produce if you get linked and are popular can be enormous. Frequently it is enough to knock a site temporarily off line or at least make it unusably slow.

Update: One week later and I get another shot on Reddit thanks to digital. It got about 5,000 in the first three hours it was there.

My second hard drive problem was with the ReadyNAS. I bought it when it was Infrant, now Netgear owns it. It is setup with X-RAID (eXpandable RAID) and one of the four drives died. That is what RAID is for though. One drive can die and you don’t loose anything. So I went hard drive shopping. I had four 400 GB drives in there which gives around a Terabyte of room (and nearly full). I couldn’t find any 400 GB drives locally and could hardly find any drives at all that were listed as compatible. So I made it all the way down to poor CompUSA. I didn’t realize they had started their going out of business sale already. I never really liked the store, but it was better than Best Buy or Circuit City and you could find most anything that the others didn’t carry (maybe that was their problem). For that it will be missed. The only compatible one large enough was a 750 GB Seagate drive, it was way more than I planned even with 10% off. Until I can replace the other three drives though, the extra 350 GB is just sitting there unusable.

I didn’t look at the bills since I pay all my other credit cards online automatically and have them set to auto deducting the minimum so I never have to worry about missing and getting a late fee (a feature this card doesn’t offer). I forget about this one since I don’t use it. Their website sucks too which makes me even less likely to use the card. My pretty unique username (not jciv) that I used when I first signed up is now taken and can’t be used. It has to be a dead account I created, even though after 6 months you have to re-register. So now I have to remember to put a “1″ at the end. And they misspelled my mother’s maiden name so whenever I have to re-register or recover my password, I get locked out for 24 hours until I can figure out how they spelled it. How would you ever know they misspelled it? It still sounds the same when you have to give it to the phone people. One time I just decided to try some variations.

Once I found the problem I tried to pay online, but for people who are behind, they change the payment system. I have to re-enter my checking account number (I don’t have my check book with me either). So I have to try again later. When I get it, they require you to tell them why I didn’t pay, how many months has my financial situation been bad, etc. Idiots. I can see asking this stuff if I were thousands of dollars behind, but $72.

They have my email address, that is how I got notified about my Reduced Purchases Rate quickly after talking to the first person. Why was I not contacted by email about missing two credit card payments? I also got an email about filling out a survey on how my dealing with customer service was. That is where 90% of this blog post comes from. Clearly they have my email address. But notifying me that way would cheat them out of the late fees because I would have paid it instantly so they don’t use it.

Long ago I stopped using this credit card completely but never canceled it because canceling a card can hurt your credit score and I was lazy. I never called in to activate my new card when it arrived and eventually just stopped getting bills in the mail. Several years later they sent a new card, it looked similar to one I was using so I assumed that is what it was and activated it. Its all been downhill from there.

Mainly I use a Sony branded credit card and am saving up points to get a Sony DSLR. I don’t really want a Sony camera, but I was already half way there when I realized that. When the Canon Powershot S5 came out, I had to decide between paying $500 or getting the Sony H9 free. I chose the Canon and saved my points hoping Sony’s SLR would be better. For free I can live with it, but as soon as I get that camera or give up and get a huge TV, I plan to get an Amazon card. They send you gift certificates for stuff on Amazon. Amazon usually has good prices and I won’t be locked into one brand.

Plus, the Sony Card’s website’s improved security measures means every time my browser is upgraded, I have to go through a verification (by email or phone) step because they don’t recognize my computer. If I was using IE and it only updated a few times a decade, that would be fine. But Firefox updates frequently (a little too frequently sometimes). Every time the UserAgent changes, I have to go through the verification again.

You can download and use the wallpapers from my site for your own personal use, but please don’t repost them anywhere. Unless you download them from KDE, they are still © All Rights Reserved. I have recently started putting up my images for sale at Shutterpoint if you are interested in using them commercially. I am willing to discuss licensing them for free in other large open source projects too, but you must ask first.

You can see a lot more of my photos on Flickr.