» 2008 » September

Google Chrome, a new web browser released today to compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox, Safari and others. I’ve beta tested with IE 8 and I was not particularly happy with the bug I found. Let’s see if Google’s first ever browser will be better or worse.

I immediately tried to load my Project Mobius web site up to see if something funny would happy. I assumed it was because Flash plug-in wasn’t installed for this browser. While downloading, I went to this blog page for a quick test. The page loaded fine it seemed, but there was a popup that disappeared way before I was able to read the sentence which was really annoying. If the message was meant to be displayed for a mere half a second, why even bother? After refreshing the page and trying to read the error message word by word. I managed to figure out that it was complaining about addition plug-in (again related to the Flash plug-in) was required to display some elements on the page and those elements were shown at the bottom left of the page. The problem was fixed right away after installing the Flash plug-in.

Overall in terms of user interface, its almost like using any other browsers out there. Even the buttons look similar although the placements are slightly different but you will never be in a situation where you cannot find a particular function, well most of the time. I actually prefer the button placements for Chrome over IE8 Beta because in IE8 Beta, the Favorites button is located right next to the Refresh button with little space in between. Where as in Chrome, there is at least some space between the two buttons. It has the Favorites or the bookmarks bar just below the location bar much like in IE8 Beta which I dislike (I hid it right away). Chrome can also have the option to hide the entire bar along with the double arrows. I would rather have the double arrows remain there like IE8 Beta, instead of pressing Ctrl+B to toggle the entire bookmarks bar section on and off. But overall I think Chrome is very clean, a little bit too plain I should say. They should work on the top frame because I am not feeling the plain blue bar at all.

I opened a new tab by clicking the little plus sign and it displayed pages I’ve visited. I could also see a full history and delete a certain day’s history similar to IE. Would be nice if there’s a button somewhere on the page to go back to the previous page instead of always clicking the Back button on the top left. Sorry just being a little picky here.

One minor problem I encountered was when I mouse overed the title, it would not be displayed as a clickable link because somehow I’m guessing its still referencing the top layer when the two div tags were too close to each other, as with my blog’s navigation links and the newest entry’s title link. , which was the navigation links. I couldn’t even select the text from that title.

I only use the basic functions during web surfing such as finding a particular text on a page, going back to previous pages, bookmarking interesting places and etc. I don’t see why I would switch from one of the existing browsers over to Chrome as I’m a very casual web browsing user. But one thing for certain is that, Chrome’s stability is much higher than that of IE which I had problems with while testing IE8 Beta. I definitely will look forward to future releases of Google Chrome.

For more information, please visit the learn more page on Google.

Sony PSP-3000 will be released in Japan on October 16th. The newest version features faster response time, higher contrast and color depth that result in better display quality. It also has an anti reflective screen, I’m guessing its something similar to the TFT technology on most of Sony Ericsson’s cellphones starting from the T630. Video-out option now supports outputting to analogue televisions as oppose to only progressive televisions.

Display improvement aside, a built-in internal microphone will also included in the new PSP located just below the screen which supports Skype.

The new PSP will come in three colors – Piano Black, Pearl White (my favorite) and Mystic Silver. Again in two trims – the basic version with the PSP, AC adapter and a battery while a value pack will have all those plus strap, cloth for cleaning the screen, a nice pouch (specially the white one) and a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo which is something extra. It used to come with a 256MB one if I remember correctly.

I am happy Sony is adding so much more features to the PSP, features that will actually be useful! Unfortunately I’ve already got one, the oldest version in Pearl White.

Microsoft released Internet Explorer (IE) 8 Beta last week. I was relunctant to download it and give it a try because of chance of instability not just to web browser but the entire OS, or operating system as a whole. But my curiosity won and I installed it today and writing this review using it.

The first thing I noticed was the Favorites is now part of the top section of the browser where the common File, Edit View etc bar and the navigation buttons are. I found it somewhat pointless if I have more bookmarks that the width of the browser can display because in that case I STILL have to either click the double arrow to the far right of the Favorites or click the Favorites in the File, Edit and View bar like in previous versions. Needless to say, I got rid of that right away, although a Favorites button remains on the top, it still takes up less space than before as I prefer a cleaner browser with as little as possible. Another related feature is the One Click Favorites which will save you a few clicks when trying to favorite a page.

IE7 introduced tab navigations which was long implemented in Firefox and Mozilla, IE8 further enhances that feature with Quick Tabs where you will be able to view thumbnail size of pages in each tab. You can go to that page by selecting the corresponding thumbnail.

On the Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 features page, it stated Increased performance. I have yet to notice any differences, and I actually crashed while surfing other websites once. I’m not sure if its a coincidence or because of IE 8.

There are two features that I think are relatively more useful – Web Slices and Compatibility View. Web Slices allows you to “favorite” or subscribe to a web page in your Favorites. When new information is available, the tab will be highlighted, when you click on the tab, it will then display a preview of the updated page. Clicking on that preview will bring you to the actual page. This is very handy for people that often buy/sell on eBay. The compatibility View is also a great feature because I can assure you not every website will be fully compatible with this new version of IE. WordPress for one isn’t 100% compatible. With this new feature, all you have to do is click theCompatibility View button located just beside the Refresh and Stop button on the url section and you can view the page, and only this page, as if you are using IE7.

The URL bar, where you type in a website address also received enhancements. For example, if I type in the word “game”, it will display all matches from History, Favorites and RSS feeds. Neat feature but probably not as useful as the previous two mentioned.
Finally, IE8 also introduces a feature called Accelerators. Basically the idea is to save user’s time by eliminating the copying and pasting. It is sort of like an auto complete by using stored input data. I haven’t had time to play around too much with it.

I have also found a bug that will crash IE8 everytime, at least on my PC. Simply right click on any links and it will crash. Although IE can recover and display the page again. Basically I cannot right click on any links until either I downgrade back to IE7 or wait for an updated version of IE8.

There are some nice features in this version of IE but nothing “must get”. So for those who are not as curious as me, its better to wait for the “live” release. I have not written all the features of IE8 but rather some of the obvious ones but I hope this review can give you some ideas of what is to expect from IE8. For an overview or the full list click here.