Digital Oxygen Weblog

This entry is written in Google Chrome

mike@digioxy.com — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:43:34 GMT

Yup, I'm giving Google Chrome a try, and it's the underlying technology that's detailed by their comic that has convinced me to try it.

So far, so good. It's clean, it's neat, and it's fast.

It took me a couple tries to get the Flash plugin working, because the first site I went to that uses Flash had me using the default installer from the Adobe website. However, the second site I went to had Chrome prompt me to use its own plugin, which then worked.

I'm coming from an IE7 background, although I've played with Firefox, Opera, and even Safari for Windows, but neither of them convinced me to switch. I will have to get used to fact that the right click "Open link in new tab" option is now the first entry and not the second, as I use that command a lot.

Some features that have yet to be added:

A show picture command in the image context menu to force a reload of images that didn't display the first time.
A way to add words to the internal spell checker (a nice feature, by the way).
Support for Microsoft Silverlight (which'll have to be written by Microsoft). A lot of the internal plumbing of Chrome appears to be inspired by Microsoft .Net (such as compiling the Javascript to native machine code before running, and managed memory / intelligent garbage collecting). Silverlight is still in its infancy, but promises to bring the rich UI of desktop applications to the web in a way that's much more flexible than Flash. It also promises to give us a more MovieOS experiences, like WPF applications will give in Windows.
Click and drag of my mouse's scrollwheel doesn't do a fast scroll of the web page, although the scrollwheel itself will scroll.
Mac and Linux versions aren't out yet, but at least they're forthcoming.
More to come...

This is after my 30 minute first impression, but I'm already strongly considering making Chrome my default browser, even though it's only a beta.

As icing on the cake, Google has released Chrome as an open source project in order to push browser technology forward, and is hoping the other browsers will take up the challenge to copy these new features (each tab on its own thread so that one bad tab doesn't bog down the others), as well as come up with something better.

Looking in the crystal ball of the future, I would guess that Chrome may spell the death of either Firefox or IE, and it's most likely going to be Firefox. IE8 is around the corner, and unless Microsoft's engineers have solved the same problems that Google's engineers have solved, then IE8.5 will be coming sooner than expected. Firefox will have to scramble to catch up as well, and perhaps lose a little weight in the process.

Oh, and I approve of the new browser name. :)

SilentBanker Virus - Much Hype, Low Threat

mike@digioxy.com — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:57:44 GMT

It's that time of year again when news of a new virus hits the press and gets everyone in a panic. While SilentBanker is a clever virus, it's not widespread enough to worry about. Keep your computer's operating system and anti-virus updated, don't open any unexpected e-mail attachments, and you'll be fine.

Step aside Flash, here comes MRAM!

mike@digioxy.com — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 03:40:50 GMT

Freescale Semiconductor Inc. has made a big splash in the news yesterday with the announcement that they have started commercial shipments of MRAM chips.

What does this mean to you?

Well, MRAM is a sort of holy grail of memory technology that has been pursued since the 1990's. It's fast, cheap to produce, consumes less power than conventional memory, and remembers its data when power is removed.

It could be used to replace the flash memory in digital cameras, mobile phones, and MP3/Media players in order to speed up the devices (particularily in digital cameras, when you're taking several pictures in burst mode) and extend the battery life. The existing Flash memory currently requires extra power to write data to the memory, and suffers from a limited number of memory writes before the memory needs to be replaced. MRAM doesn't have these limitations.

It could also be used to replace the memory found in desktop and laptop computers, where you will also benefit from increased speed and lower power consumption. You will also be able to turn your computer off completely (not just in standby or hybernation mode) and then turn it back on and pick up exactly where you left off without sitting through the boot process.

As storage capacity increases with this memory technology, it would be ideal for replacing small hard drives with solid state drives. This would be ideal for ultra-mobile PCs which need to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their batteries.

In fact, the only current memory technology that MRAM couldn't replace is SRAM, which is the very fast but very expensive memory used inside computer processors as local cache memory.

When will you be seeing the effects of this new technology?

Although the new memory chips are commercially shipping now, they don't have the capacity yet to be used for the above applications. The current chips are four megabit chips, whereas we would require chips approaching gigabit capacity before they could start to replace current memory technologies.

I would expect to see MRAM chips first turn up in places where you would find an embedded processor, such as in televisions, DVD players, home applicances, networking equipment, and industrial machines. After that, MRAM will start showing up in mobile phones and handheld PDAs before it starts to replace Flash memory cards.

Fortunately, Freescale Semiconductor isn't the only company developing the technology, so I would expect the storage capacity to continue increasing in the next two to five years until this technology is ready to start replacing current memory technologies.

.Net Framework 3.0 announced!

mike@digioxy.com — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 19:52:23 GMT

The upcoming Windows Vista will be shipping with a technology called WinFX, which gives software developers (such as myself) a new set of interfaces to write applications against. These interfaces will provide new functionality and simplify some common programming tasks.

It has now been announced that WinFX will be called the .Net Framework 3.0. The .Net Framework 2.0 will still be at the heart of 3.0, however.

To summarize, .Net 2.0 + WinFX = .Net 3.0. From what I've been able to gather, all .Net 2.0 applications will be able to run unchanged under .Net 3.0.

After Windows Vista ships with .Net 3.0, Microsoft will be releasing install packages that allow .Net 3.0 applications to run under Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

Once .Net 3.0 is released for these platforms, Digital Oxygen will start developing new applications to target the new framework.

It's alive!

mike@digioxy.com — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 13:16:19 GMT

After working for other people all my life, I've decided to give working for myself a try.

I've got my company incorporated, my first contract landed, my business cards on the way, and now I'm setting up the company website.

Please bear with me while the website is built over the next few days, and mind the sawdust.