Visually Showing Data in Real Time

Some interesting sites showing live data location visually on a map.

http://www.angelsoft.net/

http://www.thisnext.com/activity/map/

Google Chrome web browser useful?

Google fans are amazed at some of the features in Google Chrome, Google's new web browser which was recently released.  Unfortunately, those poor souls could have had many of these features already had they been using Opera.  I have been taking many of these features for granted for years now without having to download any additional extensions.  I am glad to see Google helping these people see that these features are better and useful.  Tab/Window management, check.  Address bar under the tabs, check.  Smart searching from address bar, check.  Taking advantage of the empty space on a new tab to present your favorite sites, check.  Browser speed, check.  Page load speed, check.

That said, I do not believe those UI features are why Google released a browser of their own.  Like I said, practically all of the UI features have been done already and, in my opinion, they are missing a multitude of features still.  Where they have Opera and all the other browsers beat is with the V8 Javascript engine, Google Gears built into the browser and treating tabs/sites as their own separate applications.  Google is obviously building a platform to better run their applications like Google Docs, Google Spreadsheets and GMail on the desktop both online and offline.  Google Gears is a must for Google's office products to be used offline.  A separate add-on/extension required for a user to download is not acceptable for the masses.  So, why not try to build a platform browser with it already included?  Good idea in the end, especially since they are taking existing features and open source code to build upon.  Hopefully, Opera and the other browsers will follow suit with the push towards better web application performance.

Web Page Performance Tool

http://pagetest.patrickmeenan.com:8080/

The above link does not appear to work through our corporate firewall, I assume because it is on port 8080… oooohh look out, I am so glad they keep us safe!

Anyway, it is a comprehensive tool to say the least. Warning, you may possibly get information overload when using this tool.

Google Chrome, I am Not Impressed

Ok, I give Google props for making an effort to advance browser technology. They are pushing in the right direction I believe with promises of better process/memory management, smarter history/search/bookmarks, more efficient JavaScript execution using a virtual machine and most importantly offline application capability. In essence, creating an application platform to be used online or offline.

Admittedly, it is a beta browser and therefore we should automatically excuse any poor performance, right? Sure, beta means forgive us of our mistakes and btw, you get extra geek points for using beta software. Anyway, I have only given the browser a few minutes of my time but as of right now I am unimpressed. It locked up while I was using Google Docs, no less. It created the isolated separate processes for each tab (I had three open) as Google promised it would. Each process was using around 20MBs each. However, the fourth process, which was the parent, effectively locked up using 100% CPU while I was trying to save a document and therefore the whole browser was locked and rendered useless.

Obviously, the release of the Google Chrome browser has received much hype and therefore I am confident Google will continue to work out the kinks. It will be interesting to see where this takes the browser market and how quickly the other browsers incorporate Gears and a JavaScript virtual machine.

Google Chrome web browser released

Google describes their new Google Chrome browser using a comic book format.

Google Chrome web browser comic book

Google is releasing their browser soon as an open source application and will make it freely available for download. They have basically combined many of the features from other browsers into a single browser. They have taken many of the revolutionary tab features from Opera and combined them with better process/memory management. Google Chrome will manage its own memory and processes… much like an OS. A Javascript virtual machine will increase the speed and performance of Javascript. In addition, and I believe this is the key, they have integrated Google Gears into the browser. They are obviously not as interested in “web browsing” as much as they are interested in building an application platform. Gears enables their online solutions, such as Google Docs, to become offline solutions as well.

Sun buys MySQL

Sun Microsystems has bought MySQL for $1 billion. That is $1,000,000,000! I just had to write out all of those zeros. MySQL is an open source database which Sun says has grown to be enterprise-ready.

It also appears that BEA Systems Inc has agreed to be acquired by Oracle Corp for $8.5 billion.

FireShot for Firefox

FireShot
by susbox

FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers. It's possible to choose whether entire web page or only visible part of this page should be captured. Screenshots can be saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.

Adds the ability to take a screenshot of web page (entire of visible part), edit it, add annotations and save (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copy to clipboard, send to external editor or e-mail it.

Free Download Manager

Free Download Manager (FDM) v2.5 introduces some really nice features.

• Flash video download
• Audio / video files converter
• Bittorent support
• Easy file sharing
• Remote control
• Portable mode
• Metalink support
• General Public License
• Multilanguage support (desired language may be chosen during installation)

I typically use the built-in download manager in Opera, but for large downloads I will use this application.  Simply copy the download URL to the clipboard and start FDM.  When you go to add the URL to FDM, it will automatically pick it up for you from the clipboard.  I do  not have FDM integrated into Opera or IE.

Send Large Files via Email

http://www.sendthisfile.com/ Unlimited

http://www.yousendit.com/ up to 100 MB

http://www.megaupload.com/ up to 250 MB

http://www.rapidshare.de/ up to 100MB

http://www.dropload.com/ up to 100MB

http://www.largefilesasap.com/ up to 2GB

http://www.zupload.com/ up to 500 MB

http://www.fileflyer.com/ up to 400 MB

email large files gets around email attachment size restrictions. upload the file and send a link via email.