GeekDamage

Google released a beta version of a web browser named Google Chrome. It’s extremely clean and simple looking, and the features (for just being a Beta product) are pretty amazing. There isn’t terribly much I can say about Google Chrome that Google hasn’t already said via a short Google Chrome Web Comic that explains pretty much everything about it.

Instead I’ll focus on some other aspects of the browser. If you aren’t already aware in browsers like Firefox there are special pages you can visit by prefixing certain words with about:. Google Chrome isn’t any different, it has several pages like this as well.

about:version Will show you the version information for Google Chrome, copyright information and the User-Agent string that the browser sends out.

about:cache Shows a list of all of the pages cached by Google Chrome.

about:memory Displays the memory usage for various aspects of Google Chrome. It will also show memory usage data for other web browsers if they are running at the same time as Google Chrome.

about:plugins This about page will show you all of Google Chrome’s plugin information. (Such as Java, Flash, ActiveX, etc.)

about:stats “Shhh! This page is secret!” The stats page shows statistical information about the inner workings of Google Chrome.

about:internets A Google Chrome easter egg. This easter egg only works properly on Windows XP. If you are browsing from Windows Vista, you will miss the animation that plays on the page that only XP users can see.

about:dns Shows a list of the prefetched DNS entires.

about:crash Will display the screen that shows up when a tab crashes for one reason or another. Don’t worry though! Due to Google Chrome’s multi-threaded design, each tab has it’s own process so you can freely close the crashed tab and use the other ones like nothing ever happened.

As an ending note, I really like this browser and I hope Google continues to develop it regularly. The main areas I feel it is lacking is more control over the settings of the browser, and extensions. Which I’m sure both will be added in time.

(I am also using Google Chrome to write this post!)

95 words

I’ve known about this online typing test for awhile, but never thought to post about it. So far (when I’m in good condition health wise/etc) this is the best I’ve done. Check it out: http://speedtest.10-fast-fingers.com

Recently Comcast posted an announcement on their website that confirms a 250GB bandwidth usage cap for all residential customers. The announcement states that starting October 1st, 2008, anyone that goes over the limit may be contacted by Comcast and asked to lighten the usage. Excessive violation of the bandwidth cap may lead to account suspension.

With all of the online services out there today that offer video/audio streaming, and downloading of HD quality movies, among other various tasks internet users engage in — a 250GB limit seems pretty low, even if you only count the amount of free (or cheap) legal content of this quality and size.

I personally believe this cap be extremely ridiculous. I’m not sure exactly what my usage is per month, but I know it has to be up there. I regularly download games, watch streaming video (Hulu/Youtube), and am constantly on dozens of websites at a time throughout the day (pretty much every day). Let’s not count the 6 to 7 or so devices that routinely require regular downloadable upgrades.

Even if it is only 0.01% of the current customer base that go over this limit, that is still a lot of customers. I definitely forsee some bad publicity for Comcast.

http://www.comcast.net/terms/network/amendment/

Now that I have pretty much all of the base setup of my desktop complete, I decided to post about it.

As mentioned before, my distribution of choice is Debian’s testing branch. When I first installed Debian I used Gnome as the desktop environment/window manager, and then I switched to XFCE to see how that worked out. While I really like both of those, after trying out Openbox at the recommendation of a friend I have fell in love with it. It’s very minimalistic and lightweight.

In addition to Openbox, I use fbpanel as my panel software, and conky to display the little bit of system information you can see in the screen shot on the left side.

Conky is a very powerful system information viewer. It let’s you print the information to the desktop, or in it’s own window. The configuration options are pretty easy to get the hang of, although I think it should be documented a little better. Conky has support for tons of information already such as CPU usage, Hard Drive statistics, uptime, and the ability to execute any command you normally would in a terminal and have the output displayed.

I’m still experimenting with various programs and such to figure out what works best for me, but as a running tally of what I am currently using:

1. Openbox (window manager)
2. Fbpanel (panels)
3. Conky (system information/statistics)
4. alsaplayer (audio)
5. VLC Media Player (video)
6. XChat (IRC)
7. gFTP (FTP Client)

On an ending note, I get most of my wallpapers from Interfacelift. It’s a really nice collection of crystal clear high resolution wallpapers.

I got the Samsung NV11 yesterday from Fedex. It looks really slick in person, and despite some of the reviews I’ve read about the interface for the camera being iffy and non-standard, I love it. The camera took about 150 minutes to charge before its first time use, which was a little annoying, but as long as it’s a good strong battery I don’t care, I plan on buying another battery as a backup as well.

I’ve taken a few test shots with it, and I think they turned out pretty good. They are better than my old camera, and it fits me perfectly for right now. I’d say this was a great buy for someone that just wants a digital camera handy.

Here is a picture of some flowers on the side of the house, be sure to expand the image for the best view.

I finally made the switch from Windows as a primary desktop to Linux. My distribution of choice is Debian. It’s a great distribution and their net-install disc makes for a quick ISO download and burn. Then you can choose how much you want to install, instead of just downloading a huge image file, and removing things you do not want or need.

I’m currently using Gnome for the environment. I haven’t played around with the different pre-installed themes or anything yet, but that is just because I’ve recently finished setting up the basic stuff on the system. I’d also like to venture off into other window managers sometime, but for now I think I’ll stick with what I have, at least until I get bored with it.

For a little more information, I still plan on being an active Windows user. My current laptop (as mentioned in a previous post) is still running Vista, but I am thinking about putting XP back on it, as I believe it to be more stable than Vista will ever be.

Last night I bought the Samsung NV11 10.1MP Black Digital Camera from woot for $154.99 shipped. I’ve read reviews that have mixed feelings on the camera, but for $154 (where it’s normally higher) I’m willing to give this camera a shot.

I’m not looking for much in a camera, just something that takes decent pictures, and it doesn’t have to be SLR quality, at least not right now. It sure does beat my broken Kodak EasyShare though.

Anyway, the delivery time on the camera was listed around 5 days, so hopefully it’ll be here around Friday.

I enjoy debates on various topics, but sometimes it just needs to be put to rest for awhile. I am specifically talking about the on going storm of which operating system you should use, and which one sucks. Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but neither is the best. Both platforms have their upsides and downsides.

The one area I really want to discuss is Linux and Windows in the desktop aspect. Microsoft Windows has dominated the market in providing a easy to use GUI environment for it’s users. It’s backed by a huge corporation, and for software developers that wish to remain in the market and stable, it’s a good thing. Considering the free and open source nature of Linux, and its communities it’s no surprise it is a late bloomer in this field. I wouldn’t have expected it not to be, it does after all rely on communities volunteering their free time away from work and family to create such programs.

Only recently has anything user-friendly in terms of Linux Distributions been released, and that is Ubuntu. If something as simple as that was created around 1995 (Windows 95 release date) the operating system community might be drastically different today. Because of the late start of newbie-friendly desktop environments in Linux, of course there is going to be hundreds of Windows-only programs and games, and of course the majority of the users are going to stick to Windows so they can continue to use the programs and games they are accustomed to.

The number one debate point I hear about switching main desktops from Windows to Linux is their programs they have used for years on Windows. There are some really great Linux alternatives to many different programs you would normally need on Windows for things such as business, graphics design, and video editing. But, and there’s always a but, for the corporate world, most things of this nature are centered around proprietary applications for proprietary operating systems (Hello Windows, and Mac!). I don’t think you’ll be able to change the entire corporate world’s mind on this either.

As for home/personal users’ desktops and one of the greatest reasons I still keep Windows machines in the house is gaming. There’s some games designed specifically for the Windows operating system that will not run under Linux using emulation software such as WINE. And it is this reason I have Windows desktops still. A common argument against this is there are similar games of the same genre created for Linux desktop gaming as well. Yeah, that’s great. But is it [my] game? I don’t want to play [alternative game], when I can not change anything and still play [current game]. For Linux zealots attempting to convert Windows users using this argument, stop. It’s invalid, no matter how you look at it, it is a matter of personal preference for which games users like to play, it does not matter what operating system they are coming from.

Now that we have the desktop world out of the way, the one thing I can agree on about using Linux is for servers. I use them, this website, and my other websites are all hosted on Linux based operating systems. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. When it comes to server hosting, Linux is definitely what you need.

I’ve just been a bit annoyed lately by people attempting to forcefully push others towards their operating system because their closed-minds cannot comprehend why someone would not want to immediately jump over to a completely new environment without another thought. It’s sad, but I have seen it happen in several places I have visited.

My current setup includes a Windows desktop, Windows laptop, and a broken Linux server. When I get everything fixed I should have A Linux desktop, a Windows laptop, and a working Linux server (or two, maybe). We’ll see.