Curious Geek

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks now, ever since the release of Opera 10.50 but I never seemed to find the time. However, today Microsoft announced Internet Explorer 9. This reminded me that I still had to write this post and gave me another good reason to!

I’ve always been willing to change my browser (unlike some) and I’m willing to accept that a new version of a browser can be radically different from the last version and well worth trying again.  This couldn’t be any more true when it comes to Opera latest release, Opera 10.50. I’ve never got on with Opera, I found it slow and its interface clumsy. I never had a desire for any of the extras Opera tacked onto the browser (BitTorrent etc.) and that was its only real selling point as far as I could see. Opera 10.50 is a whole new beast though. The UI is clean and yet still customisable, allowing me to hide features I don’t use and put the features I do use right where I want them. Its also blinding fast, it renders webpages well and seems to be able to handle whatever site I through at it. I’m tempted to say its even faster than Google Chrome. I have found some bugs though, and although none of them are showstoppers, it definitely feels a little rushed in some areas. Opera seemed to move from Beta to RC to Final release in under two weeks, that’s mighty fast and it’s bound to be a little rough around the edges. The reason they rushed it: The Browser Ballot screen in the EU. Opera wanted their latest and greatest ready for the general public and I’m sure that if people choose to install Opera 10.50, they will not look back. It’s also nice to see HTML5 support in Opera, paving the way to the future of the internet.

Despite Operas newly found speed, it was playing catch up and still is in some aspects to Google Chrome. Chrome quickly became the fastest browser around after its release in 2008 and it has recently started getting the attention it deserves. The interface is slick, fast and, when running the Stable builds, bug free. Google recently release extensions for Chrome, these have greatly improved the experience and definitely arn’t as detrimental to performance as some extensions in Firefox can be. It also has an amazingly fast engine under the hood, Rendering is quick as is Javascript and it manages (as does Opera) to score 100/100 on the Acid3 Test. Google are constantly pushing out new features to Chrome, and it’s growing all the time. It also offers advanced security features such as sandboxed tabs and allows the porn surfers of the world to created pivate tabs.

Next up is Internet Explorer. The pile of turd lying at the bottom of the browser podium. Its slow. Its clunky and it’s holding back the internet. I urge anybody running anything below version 8 of this browser to upgrade now, you’ll save cute animals from painful deaths. Infact don’t upgrade to version 8, go download Google Chrome. However, this may all change soon. Microsoft just announced Internet Explorer 9. It now supports CSS3 and HTML5, two technologies vital to the future of the internet. It also scores much better on the Acid3 test than previous versions of IE. It’s only 55/100 but its a start. Seeing Microsoft finally standardising their browser is nice and it can’t come soon enough. I’m eager to see the final release and if your even more eager than that, you can give the IE9 Preview a whirl.

The second most popular browser currently out there is Firefox. It gained massive popularity when they tried to break the world record for the most downloads in one day. It has always been a great alternative to Internet Explorer but has found itself a little slow when it comes up against some of the new boys. Recent releases have improved things but if browsing speed is what you want, then Firefox has fallen behind. Firefox does however still have a budding extension developer community. Some of the extensions out there are amazing and really add to the overall browsing experience and that’s why a lot of people will never leave Firefox. They can’t live without their extensions. For me, I’ve never used many extensions and it’s all about getting around the internet as fast as possible and that’s why Firefox just falls short of the mark. I’m hoping future releases will bring it up to to the same level of Chrome and Opera.

So there we have it a quick round up of 4 browsers. There are many others out there and they are all worth a try. I could have wrote about them all but in the end, only two browsers really matter at the moment as far as I’m concerned. Those two are Opera 10.50 and Google Chrome. I currently find myself mainly using Opera but I still occasionally open Chrome as it has been my long time favourite and still holds a place in my heart. It’s time to make your decision people, just please…don’t pick Internet Explorer. Not yet anyway.

P.S. I probably should have mentioned Safari 4…but I really don’t get on with its Interface. It is fast though.

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Enough said.

Source: PCPro

What an exciting day yesterday turned out to be at MWC (Mobile World Congress). Rumours had been floating around the internet that Microsoft we’re going to make a big announcement and they sure did. They announced Windows Phone 7 Series (A bit of a mouthful).

Start Screen

They have gone back to the drawing board with this one. Gone is the Windows Mobile we all knew and hated. Everything is now finger friendly. We have the smooth animations which Apple made us all want. We have multi touch gestures throughout the OS. It really is an entirely new beast. One aspect which really excites me is the Xbox Live integration. If done properly and given the attention it deserves, this could be an excellent addition to what’s already looking like a great OS. I should give the Zune integration a little mention as this also has great potential.

Games Hub

I love the Hub concept, it really worked in the Demo’s we have been shown so far. Some of the neat little touch, such as inside the People hub, being able to touch the letter and then filter by a different letter. Its the little things like that which make this OS really exciting. I was worried Microsoft wouldn’t go back to the drawing board like they really needed too and once again polish the turd that is Windows Mobile 6. However they have alleviated all my fears and shown off something which could change the landscape of the mobile phone industry just like Apple did all those years ago.

Picture Hub

Despite all this praise, I do have some concerns and whilst I’m sure these will be addressed at MIX10 (Microsoft has promised more details then) for now, they continue to worry me. What will support be like for third party developers? How well will third party applications be able to interact with existing hubs? Is there any multi tasking support (Can I listen to last.fm whilst writing a word document?)? Copy and Paste?

These are all questions which need answering and I hope Microsoft tell me developer support will be good and multi tasking will be present because if they do, I may very well be sold. Unless Google’s continuous Android improvements manage to bring it to the same level as what WP7S appears to be at. Whilst we wait until MIX10, we will just have to live with the very pretty interface demo’s.

Well, everyone else in the world has now blogged about it, so I figure its now my turn.

It was possibly the most hyped event I’d ever seen, everybody knew what was going to be announced but despite all of that, I’m left feeling a little underwhelmed. I was hoping this would finally be an Apple product that I really desire, something that could change the way I live my life. I think I, along with most others, got drawn in by the hype and expected something amazing and new but in reality, were we ever going to get that?

What we did get, is essentially a big iPod Touch with 3G capabilities. What that means is that whilst we get a device with great software, its software that is lacking in many areas for a device of this size. If apple are trying to out net books with this device, there are some core features which it needs to bring to the table (the sooner the better if they want it to succeed).

The biggest issue I have, and its an issue I’m sure Apple are going to rectify eventually, is the lack of Multitasking for non Apple apps. Its something that all other mobile OS’s support and it should be here. A device which is trying to fill the gap between mobile and laptop needs to let me flick between applications without having to close them so I can be as productive as possible and at the moment, thats impossible with the iPad. I can’t even leave an internet radio station streaming in the background whilst I send an e-mail. If this comes with iPhone OS4.0, then for me the iPad,as well as the iPhone, will suddenly become a lot more appealing.

I won’t go into detail on other things that this device and Apples iPhone OS are missing as I really want to send home the message about the lack of Multitasking. It really is that important to me. However, some things I wish the iPad and the iPhone could do are:

• Output video to my TV – This is mainly a feature I see the iPad having. I really wish I could plug it into my TV (via HDMI) and watch the movies downloaded from iTunes, I know you can do it through the dock (via composite, urgh) but I shouldn’t need to buy a dock to do this.
• Notifications – Why oh why do Apple insist on forcing the pop-up notifications in their OS? Its annoying at the best of times. Just show me an icon in my status bar…i’ll get to the message when I’m ready to. Thanks.
• eBooks – No iBookstore in the UK? Shame and I hope it comes soon. However, I hope nobody is buying an iPad because it looks like a good eBook reader. It won’t have a scratch on Amazon’s Kindle, which has better battery life and uses e-ink so your eyes don’t melt after staring at a screen for 4 hours.
• Camera – A front facing camera would have been nice. Nearly all net books have this and I really thought the iPad would follow here.
• Flash – Apple…PLEASE let Adobe put flash into Safari. *Sigh*
• No USB – That means the only way to get data onto this thing is to transfer it through iTunes and store it on the iPad’s internal memory. I want to be able to browse a USB Flash drive or plug my camera into it and transfer my photos off it.

Despite these negatives though…it has plenty of positives. The browser will be great (Although absent of Flash as usual) and the App Store will continue to be a great source of Apps, its great that the iPad can run apps created for the iPhone. Its screen will be beautiful, LED backlit. Its got great connectivity (if you opt for the 3G version) and its going to be fast and slick thanks to that 1Ghz chip under the hood. However, nothing else is particularly exciting, just all the regular features you’d find in any smartphone these days. Thats all this really is, a big smartphone…thats not even a phone, or particularly smart. I’ll leave you with this image…

iPad Vs Blu-Tack

For more information check out:

The iPhoneBlog – Complete Specs
TheiPhoneBlog – What We Didn’t Get
Apple – iPad

I’ll most likely be writing up a Blog post tomorrow with my feelings on this seriously hyped device (assuming it gets announced today) but for now, here’s what we already know…

From http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/

I couldn’t resist putting this up on here. Its a short Video showing Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, signing someone’s Apple MacBook. Good old Steve, love him.

If the rumours are true about Apple bringing Bing to the iPhone as its default search engine, Ballmer and Jobs might soon be the best of friends.

As a proud new owner of a phone with poor battery life, something like this could be revolutionary. Imagine plugging a device into your phone which can then charge it by simply being near any WiFi signals, well its now a possibility thanks to the RCA Airnergy.

RCA Airnergy

Admittedly this solution is a little bulky but they are working on shrinking this down and putting it into the batteries themselves. If this works (I’m not very optimistic) then it really could boost battery life by a significant amount. If it doesn’t work as well as I’m hoping then it could just be one big waste of money.

If you want a little more information, head over to Everything USB.

Well, I hope you aren’t all too hungover today, luckily I’m not despite having a little tipple last night. Its finally time to share some of this news that I’ve promising to spill over the past few days.

I’ve started developing Android applications and my Android apps now have their very own section on my portfolio website. If you head over there now (www.paulboocock.net) and have a look in the Android section, you’ll be able to get a glimpse of my first project, a widget called  Social Update.

I’ve also made some nice under the hood improvements to my site, including the navigation section. It now loads from an external php file which works out which link needs to be white depending on your current URL. Its my first attempt at php and I was really surprised at how easy it was, although I did only need a couple of simple if statements. I’ve also used a server side include (SSI) to load this navigation file so it should appear invisible to users, very nice indeed.

To load the external file, I simply used

<!–#include virtual=”menu.php” –>

at the location where I wanted my Navigation section on my page.

I also had to include a .htaccess file on my server so SSI’s worked.

.htaccess

Options +Includes

Options +FollowSymLinks

AddHandler server-parsed .htm .html

<?php

if (curPageName() == “index.htm”)

echo “<li><a href=\”index.htm\” class=\”whiteLink\”>Home</a></li>”;

else

echo “<li><a href=\”index.htm\” class=\”blackLink\”>Home</a></li>”;

?>

Brilliant game. This makes me want to buy 4 iPhones, then once I get bored of this game…I can throw one out of the window, set another on fire, stamp on one and flush the last down the toilet, where it belongs.

My hatred towards to the iPhone ramped up a gear today following Orange’s tariff announcement, which is identical to O2’s (not counting the 11p handset difference). Apple shouldn’t be allowed to force their prices, its ruining competition in the mobile market and that competition has always been fierce in the UK. Here’s to hoping no other handset makers attempt to follow in Apple’s footsteps. A competitively priced iPhone might have been tempting but now I’m definitely waiting for either one of the soon to be announced Android phones (X3, DROID, HTC Dragon) or the HTC HD2.

After a delayed launch from yesterday, NASA  finally got their new rocket off the ground today. A very impressive launch (watching on NASA TV) and a successful flight, although they have lost part of the rocket at the moment (I’m sure it will turn up somewhere).

Successful Launch

So well done NASA, can’t wait for the return to the moon.

Read the Launch Blog to see how it all went down.