Something Cool only Chrome Can Do

Well, Google's I/O conference is happening, so expect lots of big Google announcements over the next several days.

But before you Google Search "Google Wave" and "Google Squared," make sure to check out this fun page, for Google Chrome only.

http://mrdoob.com/projects/chromeexperiments/google_gravity/

It does work mostly in FireFox 3.5b4. But because Chrome has such a powerful Javascript engine, its really the only browser than can run this page. Move the mouse, watch the page fall, and make sure to use the search box to do a Google Search. The results drop down from the top of the page. Use your mouse to sling the objects willy-nilly.

Google Chrome 2.x VS Internet Explorer 8 VS Firefox 3.5 Beta 4 VS Firefox 3.x

In case you haven't noticed, I'm all about browsers these days. Google has made available a set of JavaScript benchmarks that can be run on any browser to see how fast that browser is. Well, Firefox fanboys clamor around the newest beta release, claiming its the Ferrari of Internet Browsers, whereas Microsoft's PR people tout benchmarks are useless and IE8 is actually the fastest. Anyway, I ran these benchmarks on all of the above browsers 5 times each to see what kind of results I got. Click the link below to see the full spreadsheet with all the data. Or just enjoy the chart below. Higher numbers means faster performance.

The Google Docs Spreadsheet

Commentary on "North Korea 'will pay' Over Tests"

My commentary is on an article published by the BBC over North Korea's recent nuclear and missile tests. The article, if you haven't already read it, is located here.

"Her comments come a day after the UN unanimously condemned North Korea for conducting an underground nuclear test."

Well how a bout that? If the UN unanimously condemns N. Korea's actions, that should totally stop them from launching any more missiles or conducting any more nuclear tests.

"'North Korea needs to understand that its actions have consequences,' she said."

This quote is my favorite. I completely believe that N Korea understands that their actions have consequences. The UN and political ambassadors have applied diplomatic pressure, and N Korea has consistently ignored the pressure, or escalated their nuclear/military arms race. This suggests one alternative. N Korea fully understands what it is doing and either doesn't care about the consequences, or is actually pleased with the consequences. Either way, it should be abundantly obvious that N Korea is not going to respond to diplomatic pressure, the UN (unanimously too) condemning their actions, or other such tactics.

If you are still not convinced, then make sure you've read that article thoroughly. The timeline is as follows:

N Korea tests nuclear capabilities underground
UN responds by unanimously condemning N Korea (what does that even mean/do?)
US ambassador emphasized displeasure and consequences
N Korea tests two short range missiles, hours later

It appears that N Korea is openly mocking the diplomatic pressure applied to them.

"Diplomats said they were seeking 'tough measures', including further sanctions."

Well, obviously the 'sanctions' thus far have failed. But what the h3ll, why not try more sanctions? I think the US foreign policy has failed to account for the possibility that a country might not respond to diplomatic pressure. Even more worrisome, there appears to be absolutely no plan to alter/change this approach foreign policy.

History has shown us that some countries, especially those with large amounts of power consolidated in few people (i.e. Dictatorship), can act irrationally at best and downright evil at worst. Until the US learns this concept and changes their approach to dealing with N Korea appropriately, I fear the pattern of escalation (we sanction more, they escalate their military testing) will continue with potentially devastating results.

Giving Microsoft Props

So I gotta give props to Microsoft. I still think Google Chrome is a better browser than IE8, but not every company can be the best and everything.

So recently I got my Xbox 360 repaired. I did the request online and had to pay a fee since my Xbox 360 was out from under its Microsoft-extended 3 year warranty. I wrote a note along with the repair order expressing my displeasure in having to pay a repair fee. But I figured since I had done the order online, that there was little chance I'd get my money back.

Anyway, the Xbox got repaired in record time, and it came back with a one year warranty (instead of the typical 90 day warranty). I was checking my account and discovered that they had indeed refunded my money from the repair to me!

So in a situation where no one (besides myself of course) would ever know if no refund were issued, Microsoft took one for the team and repaired my out-of-warranty Xbox, gave me a long warranty, and refunded my money. (Plus a one month free trial of Xbox LIVE). Other issues aside, Microsoft's repair system is unmatched.

One Google Chrome trick to improve your browsing experience

Have you ever had a window open as kind of a popup? And it really should have been a new tab? Well, in browsers like Firefox and IE, you don't have a choice but to use the annoying popup window as-is.

But in Chrome, when you get a popup that ought to be a new tab, you can set the situation right. Click on the Chrome icon in the top left corner of the new window and then select "Show as Tab." BOOM! You did it. Now you can drag the tab into your tab bar at the top, or leave it as a new window.

And in case you didn't know, any tab can be 'drug' into a new window, and windows can be drug, by their tab, into the tab bar. Enjoy!

Want the Google Chrome Beta?

Quick post today. So do you like Google's betas? I sure do. Well, if you want to use the Google Chrome beta, you have to download the Google Chrome Channel Changer. Basically, at anytime, you can use it to switch between the stable (for the end user who doesn't know what IE stands for), the beta (for users who like new software), and the dev (bleeding edge, when you HAVE TO HAVE the latest, even if its a little buggy) channels.

Download the channel changer here and start getting the latest from Google Chrome. Plus, the new Dev version (and possibly the beta version), have some cool new features, and slightly updated UI (User Interface)

********************************* (Updated 5/15/2009 @ 10:03am)
Using the above download link will download and .exe file. And yes, running that .exe is what you need to do in order to get/use the Chrome beta. You can save this .exe and switch between the stable Chrome, the beta of Chrome, and the dev version of Chrome. Cool, huh?
*********************************

Why Internet Explorer 8 is Worse than Chrome.

Well, before I get started, I need to fill you in with a little bit of how the innards of IE8 and Google Chrome work.

Both use a multi-process structure. What does that mean? Each program on your computer (iTunes, Your browser, etc) use a process. A process is basically a house. Each house has its own lot, with a default amount of acreage, which you can add to if you want. And each house/process has a certain number of people living there. And the acreage is the memory that the program can use or has access to.
So here is how firefox works:

Firefox runs in one process. So that is one house, with a default acreage (or memory). Every time you open a new tab, you still have just one house with one more resident. Maybe you add some land. Let's say you have 10 people living in that one house, or 10 tabs open in firefox. Sure you have more land, but eventually there is gonna be a conflict over who owns what and how much land each of them should have between them. This is known as a browser crash. And when all the tabs/residents are under one roof, when one blows up, it hurts everybody and crashes all your tabs. So running all the tabs in one process can be bad, especially if one of them crashes.

So Chrome and IE8 use a multi process approach. Each tab has its own house with its own land. So whenever a house/tab has a conflict, its pretty isolated and the other tabs are unaffected.

That is the theory. Chrome does this perfectly. My tabs rarely crash, but when they do, all my other tabs stay open and the browser putters along as if nothing happened. Well, IE8 needs to take a few lessons from Chrome.

A tab crashed in IE8, and I had three tabs total open. I tried to close the tab. No luck. I finished my business in the other tabs, and tried to close the browser. It 'hung' trying to close the problem tab. So then I go to the task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del), and find the iexplorer.exe process. There are a couple of them, because, as I said earlier, this is a multi-process browser, so each tab gets its own process. Well, I do what I always do when a problem has a major meltdown. I kill the process. Thankfully, IE8 is soooo advanced, it knows when a tab is having a problem, so it reopens the process. So basically, I'm in the task manager, just trying to close the processes faster than IE8 can reopen them. Finally I close both processes, and manage to close the process before IE8 can fully reopen them, and finally close out my browser.

Stupid IE8. Chrome has a built in task manager just for Chrome (Right click on your chrome window and select 'Task Manager'). It allows you to see which tabs are doing what, how much bandwidth and processing power they are using. If a tab becomes completely unresponsive, you can easily find which tab and close it. With IE8, you have to use the windows task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) which offers ZERO assistance as to which process is related to which tab (each process and tab is named iexplorer.exe) Once again, I say BRILLIANT microsoft.

Sure IE8 is loads better than IE7 and lightyears beyond IE6. But in terms of speed and reliability, Chrome has got IE whooped! And a new study just came out that shows that 97% of Chrome users have the most recent (and most secure) version of Chrome, thanks to their super-silent update. Whereas Firefox is 84% and the other browsers are 15%-30% below firefox. So you tell me which browser is best.

Preloading Images using CSS and Javascript

Alright, you web devs out there. If you've ever used javascript-based mouse over effects, you usually want to preload the "moused over" images.

If you want an example, go to http://www.allcapnet.com and mouse over the buttons that are in place for a menu bar. When you mouse over the button javascript says "Hey, somebody just put their mouse over this button, so now I'm gonna swap the current button for this new button."

WHY YOU NEED PRELOADING:

It's like if you buy someone a Christmas present. It would be insane to wait to buy the Christmas present until Christmas day when someone asked you "Hey, where's my present?"

No one would actually do this. We all buy the present 1 year/1 month/1 week/1 day early. Then we wrap it and hide it. That is exactly what preloading is. When the page opens, we know there are some images and stuff we'll need later. So using one of the methods below, we get the image early, while the user isn't looking (metaphorically speaking), so that when the user DOES need the image (like a navbar mouseover), we already have the image.

So preloading get the image early and when the user wants to access the picture (aka a navbar mouseover), we don't have to wait while javascript panics and loads the image — because we preloaded the image it is now instantaneously available to the end user.

However, if the image hasn't been preloaded, then the menu will appear to lag because javascript has to load the image, and then perform the swap. But if the image is preloaded, then when javascript performs the swap, it will be instantaneuous to the end user and they won't notice any menu lag.

So here are two methods for preloading images. One uses pure CSS and one uses javascript. Right now I'm using both together and have been pleased with the results.

CSS Method:

#div-preloader{

width: 0px;

height: 0px;

visibility: hidden;

background-image: url(image-mouseover.gif);

background-image: url(image-mouseover2.gif);

}

Then put this html code soomewhere on your site:

EXPLAINED:

This puts an invisible div on your site. But it has the images you need preloaded set as the background. So the browser downloads the images and then they are available for javascript to swap as needed. The second method involves using javascript:

function preloader(){//created by Adam at summerbreak.blogspot.com

var imgToPreload = new Image();

imgToPreload.src = "image-mouseover.gif";

}

</script>

You would call this function via a body onload command. Like this:

EXPLAINED:

The javascript method creates an image object, and then loads the image. The downside is that not all users support javascript, or have it enabled. Plus the onload command doesn't execute until the rest of the page has loaded. But both essentially do the same thing. Experiment on your own site and find out what works best for you.

Color Paper

About

My name is Adam. I have been blogging sporadically since 2005 and have always enjoyed the connectedness of it. I'm preparing to serve a full time, 2 year mission for my Church. I work at a Real Estate company as a catch-all IT guy. I love watching movies, I don't read a ton of books but when I start one I can't put it down until I finish. More to come!