Interesting links #2

Google I/O 2009 - The Myth of the Genius Programmer: definitely a worth watching to understand what programming actually is.

10 Privacy Settings for Facebook: I don’t know if it is fair to write in the same sentence both Facebook and Privacy, however have a read and adjust your settings.

"0wnz0red": Programmers who hack their own bodies don't need exercise and never get sick: A new short story from one of science fiction's bright young stars. By Cory Doctorow

Inside Gazelle, Microsoft Research's "browser OS": for sure it will not bury Internet Explorer in the near future. But it is still interesting, really interesting.

Windows 7 is nearly RTM but there is still the need to additional software to Mount ISO images, and make PDF.

If you missed the links we suggested in the past check it out.

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Make your Firefox address bar better

The best thing of Google Chrome is its address bar that has both the classic address bar role and the search bar role.

To have the same behavior on Firefox you have to remove the search bar. After that you can type your searches in the address bar. Unfortunately the default behavior is to show the useless “I’m feeling lucky” Google response, to get a full response you have to do the following steps:

• type about:config on the address bar and tell Firefox that you aren’t going to make a mess.
• search for the keyword.URL entry. Once you found replace the default string with this one http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=

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Computer History: 1994 – Netscape

Happened in 1994:

• Apple releases the first Macintosh computers to use the new PowerPC Microprocessors.
• Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, is found dead in Seattle, Washington
• Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna is killed in an accident during the San Marino Grand Prix.
• Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa's first Black president.
• The Provisional Irish Republican Army announces a "complete cessation of military operations."

In 1994 was also released the first version of Netscape, since Google Chrome revamped world interest on browser war I’m going to dedicate the first episode of Computer History to it, one of the main characters of the original browser war.

Before the .com bubble, the first browser war, and the web as we know it

After Netscape died his code was taken by Mozilla Foundation to develop Firefox, but this is another story, you are going to know more when we are writing one of the next computer history stories.

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Today big thing: Google Chrome

Hi everybody, this week started with a big thing form Mountain View. After the iPhone and its troubles, the flop of Cuil, the Olympic Games and the release of Photosynth and IE8 beta 2 it is Google turn to come out with something new: a web browser.

Maybe some of you are thinking that a web browser isn’t really something new, and you are perfectly right unless the new browser adds some new capability. Google promises a browser for web-application, something that sounds to me like the Google OS that Google can’t develop. Does it seems a good idea? I don’t think so, why should I have (and maintain) both a regular OS and this web-app OS? Why should I give to Google more data than the personal information has yet?

Going on reading articles that invaded my RSS reader (OMG, you’re all talking about Chrome) I’m not so impressed, I have still in mind the two days Cuil fever… we all know how it finished

Looking at Chrome features I’m not finding the big thing that such noise made me expect for:

• Stability: one tab, one process, as in IE8.
• Speed: it uses webkit, so at least I can be as fast with Konqueror or Safari (But is better if you don’t use something designed with security in mind). Maybe the new JavaScript Engine is good, but also other browser are enhancing their interpreters.
• Search: Am I the only one that associates that with privacy danger?
• User experience: I think to have yet seen what they’re promising.
• Security: wow a blacklist system pushed by Google, I hope that Chinese government is not thinking to use it.

Will it last as a revolution or is Chrome going to be a failure?

[UPDATE 9-2-2008] To download Chrome just open the Google homepage and follow the link. Soon my review.

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Internet Explorer 8 beta 2 is available

I’m just downloading the new beta form the official site. You can read on the official blog what has been changed or come back in few days to find my first review.

p.s.

Don’t worry for my navigation, my main browser is Opera, so even if the beta is too beta I don’t mind :-D

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IE7 Pro 2.3 is out, browser war goes on

Waiting for a stable version of IE8, I'm installing the latest version of IE7Pro, the definitive IE7 Plug-in.

Of course with Firefox Extension you can get a better customization, but I think that for a IE user this is a must have. It adds features and just works without any issue.

Personally I appreciate most the possibility to change the proxy settings with two click, have a real download manager plus a whole set of useful customizations.

On the other side you should try Firefox 3 or Opera 9.27. I discourage to install a browser designed with security in mind.

What is your favorite browser?

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