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

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

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."

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

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.

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!

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?
*********************************

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.

And you don't understand. I DEPEND on my computer to deliver accurate time to me, within 20 seconds of UTC.

As the title says, my computer was loosing time, and would be off by as much as an hour or two. Completely unacceptable.

So what do I do? Let me tell you. A couple of registry edits, and task schedulers later, my computer should by syncing so often that it'll never lose a second again.

Normally, your windows PC (I'm assuming your running XP or later) syncs time with an internet server once a week. Apparently for me, this wasn't often enough. So first, how do we tell windows how frequently to schedule a time sync? The registry of course. If you don't know what the registry is and still want to make windows sync time more frequently, just follow these following steps exactly.
Registry Edit for increasing (or decreasing) the frequency with which windows syncs time:

• Click Start
• Click on "Run"
• type "regedit"  (without quotes) and hit enter
• Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\w32time\TimeProviders\NtpClient
• Double click on "SpecialPollInterval" (if that doesn't exist, go to "Edit -> New -> DWORDS" and create a DWORD called SpecialPollInterval
• Click on the radio button "Decimal" and enter a value
• That is the frequency with which windows will sync time with an internet time server (in seconds). So if you enter a value of 1440 would be .4 hours and 14400 would be 4 hours. 

Word on the street is that the DOJ is increasingly anti-google. Here we appear to have the first official clash between the two.

You can read the full article here.

If you want my opinion on whether Google is actually guilty of anti-trust whateverness, my opinion is no. Microsoft, when it got hit with its anti trust lawsuit back in the 90s, was guilty. Why? They controlled the computer OS market, with 90% of machines running Windows. So they put software on their that users couldn't choose. So when you got a computer, you had to use Internet Explorer. Because that was all that was installed on the computer.

The inefficiency of IE6 and IE7 are direct results of the lack of competition back in the 90s for IE 5, IE 5.5 and IE6.

So why is Google not guilty? Because there is a huge difference between being forced to use IE, and choosing to use IE because its vastly superior to all competing products (its not, but for the sake of the analogy I said it).

Its the same with Google. Sure I could search with Yahoo. Or Ask.com. Or Microsoft's search (what is it, live something?). But each time I choose to use Google because its the superior search engine. Its faster, its more reliable. It delivers more accurate results, with the information I need usually in the top three results.

So thats why I think Google isn't guilty of anti-trust. Aside from that, Google has been very consistent in making sure that all their products are easy to start using and easy to leave. Gmail, for example, allows contacts to be exported/imported (a feature lacking in competitors like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail), e-mail forwarding, POP access, and other features which are lacking in the free versions of many of Gmail's competitors.

If only the new Obama-DOJ saw things my way.

Yeah its pretty friggin cool. Check out the first little bit of the video here.

Or just watch the embedded version beneath this post.


3D Computer Interface from Free Flow on Vimeo.

Ok, so that was an exaggeration. But seriously. If you have GrandCentral already, then log into you account and upgrade it to Google Voice.

The features are amazing. It may actually replace my cell phone!

Have you been wondering why, of all the Google products labeled "Labs" and "Beta," why Google Chrome doesn't have a beta? Well, they do. They use a channel changer to switch between three "branches" of Google Chrome's development.

Well, this post may be a little out of the ordinary, but I'm trying to figure out which antivirus/security suite is the absolute best.

I have used AVG free, AVG security whatever, and currently BitDefender. I've looked at some reviews online, and some of the top names appear to be Kapersky, Norton (Specifically 2009), BitDefender, and another one that I forgot.

So far, from my own personal experience, BitDefender appears to be superior to AVG. I really like the control that BitDefender gives me. I can even control which websites are allowed to write/read cookies, store scripts on my computer, etc. Plus their antivirus appears to be top-notch.

However, I have only tried these two antiviruses. What do you guys think is best? Any good reviews or tech tips from tech-y friends? Let me know in the comments.

For many years, iPod Touch owners have felt envious and jealous of iPhone owners. Why? Well, a lot of Apps, features, etc, only work on the iPod Touch. Plus the iPhone can make calls and text.

Well no longer. With a $25 add-on, I turned my iPod Touch into an iPhone (almost). I already have a skype account, with accompanying skype number and skype plan (8.95/3mo + $30/yr). Well, iTunes App store has a free skype app download. The $25 microphone (an iVoiceIII) allows me to use the skype app, and effectively turns my iPod Touch into a phone.

And let me say, the Skype app is top notch. An excellent interface, quick load times, and not buggy, like many apps are.

So with a little tech savyness, an iPod Touch, and the Skype app, you can use your iPod Touch like an iPhone. Even better, trip out your friends when you start making calls on your iPod Touch. The iVoiceIII (from Macally) is pictured below.

Quick post for today.

If you haven't been keeping up with the browser wars, now might be a good time to start paying attention. The biggest contenders right now are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome (and Opera, recently upstaged by Chrome).

****Browser War Recap*****

Internet Explorer was released on all Windows OS platforms, and was able to get their browser usage high enough (around 98%) to run Netscape into the ground. Netscape is no longer a supported browsing platform. Webpages were built just for IE6 and web development reached a standstill.

Then Firefox was introduced, and now commands 22% market share. Microsoft responded, by releasing IE7, nearly 5 years after releasing IE6. IE7 failed to deliver, and firefox continued to gain market share. Two years after the release of IE7, IE8 is now a final release. As a sidenote, Safari's popularity shows similarity to the increase in mac sales, as safari is the default browser for that OS.

So the big question is, what browser is best?

Well, if add-ons are your thing, then firefox is still the way to go. If prefer speed to all else, then Chrome is where its at. So where does IE8 fit into all this?

Personally, I use a mix of Chrome/Firefox. But after using IE8, I think IE8 may replace firefox on my personal PC. IE8 is significantly faster than previous Internet Explorers, and I feel sure it is faster than Firefox 3.0.7 (current FF version).

I rarely rave about Microsoft products, but IE8 is worth raving about. No matter which browser you use, the good news is that the increased competition from Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera, has forced all web browsers to become better, faster, and less obtrusive on your system. So for end users everywhere, this is great news.

So yeah, I just wanted to post a quick picture of me at work. The coolest thing I've done lately is hook up an extra monitor to my laptop and use the Extended Desktop functionality.

Now, instead of having to constantly switch between windows, I can have two displays, cutting out a lot of needless window switching.

Right now I've got the MLS (Realtor's search engine thingy) and Raleigh Craigslist open on my computer.

If you have an extra monitor, hook it up to the VGA port on your laptop, then right click on the desktop and select "Graphic Options -> Output to ->Extended Desktop -> Notebook+Monitor"

This will create a second desktop which you can use just like your first. For me, I have to do alot of transferring data from .pdf files into online forms. It gets pretty tiring to constantly switch between windows. This solution has definitely streamlined the process. Yay!

So I'm back on the blogging scene. Be sure to stay tuned for around one post a week.

We did it! Hahaha. We took apart our Xbox 360, piece by piece, and fixed the Red Ring of Death. It took about 2 hours from start to finish and a lot of patience. The hardest part, by far, was removing and reattaching the x-clamps that hold both heat sinks in place. 

Hey everybody. I'm promoting dad's new website, http://www.ncgetaquote.com