W(e)blinks : Notes

I'm lazy

rss-feeds@wblinks.com (Rich) — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:02:00 -0700

Yes, I'm so lazy I haven't updating this site in ages. So much of the stuff on here is out of date. I'll be updating it soon with some of my recent projects and a new design. After two years, this design is getting very old. Gone are the days when I had time to update the design every 4 months. I've already written a load of new content, and I've nearly finished my book on CSS (which will be a free PDF of course), so I'll probably put those up at the same time as the re-design. Or.. I may get bogged down with work again and not update for another few months. I never really know anymore.

Chrome Beta Released

rss-feeds@wblinks.com (Rich) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:30:00 -0700

Google's new browser, Chrome, is now available for download on Windows XP/Vista only. First impressions are that it's a very fast install, and imported all of my Firefox bookmarks with no issues. Loads much quicker than any of my other browsers, and looks quite nice. The address bar is a bit thick for my liking, but that's just me being picky. None of the usual "File", "Edit" menus, etc as the entire interface is pretty simplistic. Exactly what we've come to expect from Google products. It's got the usual Google feel about it, a nice clean interface, no status bar showing useless information, etc. When the status bar does show, you can move your mouse towards it, and it'll drop below the window so it's not in the way of the page. A nice touch. Some things are noticeably missing though, such as a "home" button, which is a feature common to most browsers. It is available, but not enabled by default. It's an option on the "Basics" part of the options page. I guess it depends on how much you use it whether that will be an annoyance or a blessing. Sites are loading pretty fast, as I would expect from something based on WebKit. One feature I have noticed, is that when you're on a page with a download link, it gives you a list of the available downloads at the bottom of the page. I've already found this useful. They've taken a page from IE8, and fade out the rest of the URL that's not the main domain. I'm not really sure why this is becoming common, and I don't really see the point. Regarding the address bar though, it's also a search bar. You can either enter a URL, or a search term and it will search Google. This combines the two bars you get in Firefox quite nicely. Of course, in FF you can choose the dropdown for various sites (for example I have a Wikipedia one), and I haven't found a way to do that easily in Chrome yet. Next up are the screenshots. The home page is pretty nice, shows you some recently visited pages along with your bookmarks. You can edit the things which are shown on it from the options screen. This is the download bar that appears when there are things to download on the page. Quite useful. Not really many options to go at, but it's simple enough for the average user. "Incognito" mode, is the privacy option. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Passes ACID2 test with flying colours. Only gets 61/100 on ACID3, but that's better than a lot of other browsers. It takes a very long time to run though on my machine. The task manager is quite nifty, and gives you a breakdown of the memory usage of each tab. It'll even tell you how much Flash is taking up if the page has Flash on it. A new feature is the "about:memory" page, which gives you a breakdown of the memory usage of the browser, along with any other browsers you happen to have open too. I can imagine this being useful for testing purposes. Overall, I'm impressed. It's clean, quick and will be great for most users. I won't be using it as my main browser though, as I really can't do without some of the FF extensions I have, they're just too useful. If they include an Add-on, or extensions feature, they're onto a winner! I think the hardest part for Google is going to be getting people to actually download Chrome, and then switch to it as their main browser. People don't like change. As long as they're moving away from IE though, I've got no complaints. A great start, and much better than the IE8 Beta. I see amazing potential in this if it gets released on the various platforms, and has the ability to customize it to your needs. For reference. Here's what happened the first time I loaded IE8b2 after a fresh install. I'm not making this up just because I hate IE.. this is actually what happened. Look how cluttered it is compared to FF, Chrome or any other browser!! Plus the fact that it crashed. (I should point out, it only crashed the first time. It seems to work fine on second load).

Google Chrome

rss-feeds@wblinks.com (Rich) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:32:00 -0700

Came across this today.

Google Chrome is Googleâs open source browser project. As rumored before under the name of âGoogle Browserâ, this will be based on the existing rendering engine Webkit. Furthermore, it will include Googleâs Gears project.

Apparently, it also includes its own JavaScript VM to help speed up scripts. Sounds interesting. I wonder how it'll render CSS ;) Seen as it's based on Webkit, I'm guessing it'll be very very good. In other news, I also came across a FF extension called Pixel Perfect (well, actually it's a Firebug extension). It allows you to overlay an image onto a website, so you can see how close the coded site is to the original designs. Quite handy if you do that sort of thing. UPDATE 1 :There's a load screenshots now available. You can read the comic if you want. It describes some of the features. Due to be released tomorrow, so I'll be giving it a go then.

IE8 Beta 2 Released

rss-feeds@wblinks.com (Rich) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 04:32:00 -0700

The new beta of Internet Explorer 8 has been released. Complete with the new InPrivate option that's been all over the news the past week or so. They've also got Compatibility View, which quickly switches to render the page as IE7 would render it (so.. incorrectly). They had IE7 rendering in the old beta, but it was crap, as you had to reload the browser. Apparently this one does it instantly. It fares well against current CSS standards though, a lot better than any current iteration of IE. There's an updated compliance table over at quirksmode.org. I shall be trying it out myself later on to see how it is.

Number 10 goes Web 2.0

rss-feeds@wblinks.com (Rich) — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:02:00 -0700

Yes, another in the long list of sites to redesign this year (I can't really complain, as I'm re-doing mine too), number10.gov.uk, the website of the prime minister's office has taken on the whole web 2.0 thing. It's got Flickr, YouTube and Twitter all in the sidebar, plus links to submit stories to Facebook, Digg, etc andof course, RSS feeds.. just in case you want to keep up to date on everything Downing Street it twittering. Seems like it's built on top of WordPress (based on the code), despite the fact there's no mention of it anywhere. They've already got some rather interesting code cock-ups. Nested anonymous <div>'s for absolutely no reason, links pointing to local IP addresses (e.g. the "Home" link, which points to http://10.10.0.215/), not to mention the fact they're not clearing floats on the "Communicate" page, so the images are pushed off to the left. There's a grand total of 72 errors if you try and validate the XHTML. Nice :) Although to be fair, most of those are because of using & instead of &. At least the CSS is valid, although they didn't write it, it's a pre-made WordPress theme called NetWorker. Also, no print stylesheet. C'mon people!!! All websites should have a print stylesheet. Trying to print their website is painful, and is going to waste a hell of a lot of paper, along with lots of ink. Is that really the environmental message they want to give out? It's even in "Beta", a true web 2.0 site! Which would explain the above issues, can't expect everything to be perfect first time. It does look very good though, and is definitely an improvement on the old site. Nice to see they're actually making an effort!