Thursday, December 25, 2008

Some Issues With Google Chrome


Over the past year I have switched from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox to Safari for Windows and now to Google Chrome.

All these browsers have their respective advantages and disadvantages of course, but the standout winner in terms of "speed" is Google Chrome. Chrome starts up blazingly quick and it renders pages just as fast. What I really like about Chrome, aside from its speed and simplicity, is that it has no problem handling 25+ open tabs at once - which I use on a daily basis. The "beta" label has recently been removed from Chrome which should suggest that it's now officially ready for primetime. Chrome currently sits in 4th place behind Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer, with a market share of 0.83% (Source: Net Applications).

A few issues I have noticed with Chrome recently involves Windows Live Hotmail and popular download manager, GetRight.

As of the latest stable version of Chrome, 1.0.154.42, nothing happens when you click on a message in your Windows Live Hotmail inbox, try to delete a message or use the left navigation buttons (Junk, Drafts, Sent, etc). I noticed this same issue in an earlier version of Chrome but it was fixed in a subsequent update - the issue is back now. Windows Live Hotmail functions properly in all other browsers, including Safari for Windows. Microsoft may be to blame here in not properly recognising Chrome. 

When you attempt to download a file using GetRight, instead of pushing the single file to you, multiple instances are pushed causing you to cancel all but one. This may be a compatiblity issue with GetRight working with Chrome as this does not occur with any of the other browsers.

Let's hope these issues are resolved soon.

Google has said they are working on an add-ons platform so developers could write nifty plugins, toolbars, extensions, etc - and we are certainly looking forward to that.

UPDATE (10/01/09) - A dev release of Google Chrome 2.0.156.1 is now available and the same problems persist with Windows Live Hotmail, as tested on multiple computers using different Operating Systems and at different locations.

UPDATE (28/01/09) - Stable version 1.0.154.46 has been released with a specific fix for the issues with Windows Live Hotmail. As tested, this new version works fine now with Windows Live Hotmail. Microsoft has a team in place to permanently resolve these issues with Chrome. 

Monday, April 7, 2008

Save Precious Time With Digsby



Let's say you have the following online accounts:

Instant Messengers

- Windows Live Messenger
- Google Talk (2 different accounts)
- Yahoo! Messenger
- AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
- ICQ

Email

- Windows Live Hotmail
- Gmail (2 different accounts)
- Yahoo! Mail
- Outlook / POP3

Social Networks

- Facebook
- MySpace
- Twitter


So your day begins and you need to connect to all your various instant messengers at once.

You proceed to open up each instant messenger client on your PC - Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk (only allows you to log into one account at a time - so you would need to switch between accounts), Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and ICQ. The result? An instant decline in your available memory! You can feel your PC begin to slow down - you barely avoid hitting rock bottom.

A more simplistic approach would be to use an all-in-one instant messenger client such as Pidgin or Trillian - and lose a few features in the process. You would save some memory-usage this way and have easy access to all your various online contacts under one client.

Now, it's time to check your email accounts. Where to begin?! You open your Windows Live Hotmail inbox, check your messages there, reply to a few, delete spam and then log out. You repeat the process (twice) for your Gmail accounts and then for each of your other email accounts in turn - Yahoo! Mail and Outlook.

You fire up Gmail Notifier and log in so you can be notified exactly when you receive new Gmail messages (again, you can only log into one account at a time). You then launch ePrompter so you can be notified with a sound when new mails arrive in your Windows Live Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and POP3 accounts.

In between chatting and logging into your different email accounts, close to an hour has passed you by. Your "real" work for the day hasn't even started as yet!

You've now covered your instant messengers and email accounts - Horray! But wait - what's going on with your social networks this morning - Facebook, MySpace and Twitter?

So you again open up the relevant websites to see what's new - you log into your Facebook account, accept a few friend requests, update your status to "very busy at work", feed a few dragons, send a few pokes and then log out. Now on to MySpace and then to Twitter.

Article continues below.

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Download the very latest versions of Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, Pidgin, Trillian and Digsby - all from YOUTHERE1.com's Messenger Center.

Get quick access to Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and more with YOUTHERE1.com's Horizon Toolbar.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

You sat down at your desk at 8am and it's now 9:35am.

What if there was ONE program that you can log into that would help you manage ALL of the above - as-it-happens.

Enter "Digsby" - http://www.digsby.com/.

Digsby helps you to manage IM + Email + Social Networks in one easy to use application:

It's a multiprotocol IM client that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber with one simple to manage buddy list. Also supports file transfers and audio / video chats.

It's an email notification tool that alerts you of new email and lets you perform actions such as 'Delete' or 'Report Spam' with just one click.

It's a social networking tool that alerts you of events like new messages and gives you a live Newsfeed of what your friends are up to.

Digsby works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Screenshots - http://www.digsby.com/screenshots.php.

Now, thanks to Digsby, instead of spending between 8am - 9:35am logging in from one website to the next, launching one client to the next, by 8:05am you can have a good handle of exactly what's going on - from your online contacts, to your emails and social networks.

Setting up Digsby for the first time was quite easy - you simply enter your login credentials for your various accounts and you can choose to auto-login, so the next time Digsby is launched it would log you into all your accounts automatically.

Worried about privacy? You should - but they take care of your concerns in detail here - http://www.digsby.com/privacy.php.

Digsby clocked in at approx. 74,684 KB of memory-usage after having it run for quite a while. By comparision, Internet Explorer 7 clocked in at approx. 230,916 KB with 4 tabs open and IE7Pro running in the background.

Digsby has now eliminated the "need" to have 5 separate instant messenger clients running at the same time, plus it has eliminated the need to have Gmail Notifier and ePrompter running in the background. You are eliminating memory-usage on at least 7 applications right there.

Get Digsby today and save precious time - your own!

UPDATE 1 (01/05/08) - Digsby now supports Facebook Chat in addition to all of the above features!

UPDATE 2 (25/09/08) - Digsby cuts RAM usage by 75%, adds LinkedIn support - http://snipr.com/3trmd

Thursday, April 3, 2008

C'mon Digg - Better Ad Placements!


Digg is a great place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web.

There are strategic spots to place ads on a website and then there are spots like these - after submitting an article to Digg this morning, I was presented with a confirmation page letting me know the article was sucessfully submitted - great.

However, this information was presented near the bottom of the page as a huge 120 x 600 ad was above it - yes, 120 x 600. Click the screenshot below for a larger image.



Is this really the best spot for a 120 x 600 ad? C'mon Digg.