Why I ditched Firefox and chose Chrome!

I used to love Firefox. I loved the browser’s innovative features. I was even a member of the Spread Firefox community and promoted usage of Firefox among my friends and family. But over the last one year the browser has changed from good to bad. It has changed from one of the most loved browsers to being one of the most hated ones, next only to the universally hated IE.

Whenever I used Firefox, it didn’t take more than 15-20 minutes for the CPU usage to peak, eventually hanging the browser, making me reload the page again. Believe me, with painfully slow internet connections its an awful experience. Gradually the browser began to consume more and more memory and became slower and slower. About a year ago I didn’t have much of a choice other than venting out my feelings, because Chrome was at its infant stages and I surely didn’t want to return to IE.

After a few months, Chrome came along as a light, super-fast and powerful browser with all its extensions and features. The choice was simple. Here are some reasons why I chose Chrome-

Startup time – Chrome is much much faster wrt to the startup time. While it takes about 7-8 seconds on Firefox, its just a fraction of the time on Chrome. Its blazing fast.

Each Tab is a different Process – Some sites contain a lot of JavaScript, CSS and AJAX. In Firefox, when such sites open, it freezes all the other tabs. For a user like me who has lots of tabs open simulatneously it could be really troublesome. Chrome resolves this making making each tab run as a separate process.  This ensures that one tab doesn’t hang the others. Chrome even has its own Task Manager which you can access by Shift+Esc. Also see some stats by typing about:memory on the Omnibox.

Clean and Simple with the Omnibox – The Address bar at the top often called as the Omnibox doubles up as a search box. This conserves much real estate and makes the browser look cooler and convenient.

No Status Bar – Until Chrome, I had been used to the status bar. But just by it not being present in Chrome I realized that it was just an useless addition which I never really needed. This too conserves much real estate.

Application shortcuts – Google Chrome enables me to create shortcuts for most of my frequently used web applications. This too helped me in conserving precious loading time.

I have been using Firefox for so long that I won’t hate it. My loyalties might have changed but I still have feelings and the desire to use Firefox. I would love to see some overhauls and expect the browser to bounce back. I’d be willing to shift to Firefox if they are able to attract me with powerful features.

PS : I’ve just started using Firefox 4 beta 3. I’m yet to reach my conclusion of the latest version. Hoping that it turns out to be good.

My Three Years on Twitter

On the 13th of August this year, my twitter account celebrated its third anniversary. I joined Twitter when it was in its nascent stages in 2007. I had heard about the site where you can share stuff regarding What you were doing at a particular time. I thought of checking it out and registered myself with the handle alagappan_nitt. At first I didn’t fully understand the need for sharing my current status with strangers. And I didn’t have any followers or any interesting people to follow. I tweeted once and disappeared. I never used it for another 8 months or so.

Any social network starts becoming interesting and useful only after it has gained a significant user base.  And twitter started gaining traction in 2008. A few of college buddies like @a4arvind and @sathyaphoenix joined twitter. Even in 2008 I just used the site for chatting with my friends about random stuff. It was like a substitute for IM clients. But I felt the features like tagging someone using @ very useful in linking to others’  profiles. I felt it could also be pretty useful for sending info to a group of friends. But the harder part was convincing friends to join twitter. I tried a bit but failed badly. Still I occasionally used twitter for updating my status during vacation and other holidays.

Around mid-2009, Twitter started becoming more interesting due to its explosive growth. It got a lot of media coverage and a lot of celebrities started using the service. And hence general public too started adopting it. A lot of my college buddies too started using it. Eventually I migrated from the old handle to the present one that is @alagappanr. Then I got the opportunity to interact with interesting people and follow them. I started using the service more often. Though I sticked to the web interface most of the time I also experimented with a few twitter clients.

Gradually twitter was being used for different purposes than what it was originally intended for. It began to be used a major real-time news source. As a influential PR/Marketing tool. As a tool to track events. As a major knowledge source. As a way to stay connected with friends 24×7. As a tool for fun. It was so overwhelming that Twitter changed its standard question from ‘What are you doing?’ to ‘What’s Happening?’.

In the month of June in 2009 I attended Twitter Unconference in Chennai – Buzz140. It has some interesting presentations on what twitter could be used for etc etc. It was wonderfully hosted by Kiruba and Co. I got hooked to the service ever since. I have been tweeting regularly and have connected with quite a few people.

As far as the interface used is concerned I have been using the web interface predominantly. I find it simple and easy to use. Apart from that I use/used a number of services like Echofon, TweetDeck, HootSuite, SMSTweets, TwitterSMS etc. Twitter through SMS is one feature that I guess is the most useful.

As I was writing this post I found a site called MyTweet16 where you can get your first 16 tweets. It was nostalgic. My first tweet was about Orkut. Orkut is now dead for me.

Though I am still a small user with a small following, I guess I am more connected with the internet than ever before. I guess just existing on a service is not a big achievement. There is a long way to go for me to extract the maximum out of twitter.

[Find out When you joined twitter at www.whendidyoujointwitter.com] [Follow me at www.twitter.com/alagappanr]

Interesting and Useful Google Chrome Extensions

Recently I made a switch to the new Google Chrome Beta browser since I was having some trouble with Firefox and also because I was looking for some change. Two major attractions with the chrome browser are its speed and its simplicity.

Though presently Chrome cannot match the number of Add-on’s which Firefox has, I guess it eventually will, since a large number of useful extensions are becoming available for Google Chrome everyday. He is my list of interesting and useful extensions.

Gmail Checker -Displays the number of unread messages in your Google Mail inbox. You can also click the button to open your inbox.

Google Reader Notifier -Displays the number of unread items in your Google Reader account. Clicking can show a preview popup or open your Reader account.

Adblock – The same features which were present in the Firefox Add-on. Blocks all advertisements on webpages.

Add This – This extension allows you to easily share, email, translate and bookmark webpages. You can configure the setting yourself or you can set it to autoconfig based on usage.

Send from Gmail – Do you get irritated when MS Outlook opens up each time when you click a ‘mail to’ id on a webpage.? Make Gmail your default mail application. It opens a compose window each time you click on a mail address on a webpage.

Chrowety, Chromed Bird – Excellent Twitter Extensions for Google Chrome. They come with a set of really useful features and both are easy to use. I prefer Chrowety for my regular usage.

One Number – A extension which lets you gather all google services in one button. Using this would eliminate the need for a number of other extensions in this list. Would be handy for those with a large number of extensions making the toolbar a bit crowded.

There are also extensions like the google wave notifier whcih might be useful for those who are actively using Google’s wave.

Gravatars for you

Gravatars are Avatars which you can use on your blogs, on other blogs where you comment and anywhere on the internet. Having an image associated with your mail ID enables you to easily use it in other blogs and websites without having to upload one on each of them.

Why am I telling you this?

This is because it gives you a complete blogging experience. Whenever you comment on other blogs you are given a plain image or a random image as an avatar. Instead, wouldn’t you like to have your image or an image of your choice follow wherever you post and comment? When I see comments on my blog posts I see a rather boring gravatar logo adjacent to the user’s name. I often wish that it’d be more interesting to have all my friends own an avatar for themselves and hence this post is an attempt in making them do so.

Just check out a small screen shot. Notice how having a gravatar gives that extra something to your comments.

The Change

Its hard to imagine that barely ten years ago we didn’t have any Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube,  iPhone or even a phone for that matter. Much of the decade has been shaped by the internet and the next decade too will see the same sort of enormous change.

It was in 2001 when we got our first phone. A landline phone connection for which we had to wait for weeks. Within the next few years we have had a much greater number of mobile phones. Computers and other gadgets have become essential. Times are changing. And we got keep up with the speed at which everything is happening.

What people generally consider is that change will occur at the same pace it happened. Technology changes exponentially. There is a great pace at which everything grows now and what happened in the first decade of the millenium might happen in just a few years.

The rate of adopting new ideas is doubling each day. Both biology and technology are similar. They are both evolutionary processes.  They create a capability and use that capability to bring on the next stage. With better interaction and communication this growth is bound to accelerate.

It was barely a few years ago when I first sent an e-mail. Now mail, instant messages etc are a part of life. A few days ago I made a list of the trends which I’d like to see in the year 2010. These are impending changes. Even if they don’t occur in 2010, they eventually will…

Tech Trends I’d like to see in 2010

There are quite a few things which I’d like to see happening in the year 2010, when it comes to gadgets, computers and the Internet. A few of these can also seem as if I’m expecting too much. But at the pace everything is happening, I’d say nothing is impossible.

• E-Commerce – Internet can thrive if its users are able to make money out of it. Facilities similar to Google’s Adsense and Adwords will become more prominent.
• mCommerce – Mobile Payment avenues like Airtel’s mChek Reliance’s mPay are already present and I guess in 2010 these will become more effective and useful.
• Online Retail – This is one feature which is yet to create a buzz in India. But I guess 2010 has a lot in store for online retail. Currently sites like flipkart.com are available in India for purchase of books.
• Videos and Internet TV – There’ll be a huge rise in videos created and circulated throughout the internet. Movies, TV Programmes and Soundtracks made specially for Internet audiences will be in vogue.
• Social Network and APIs – 2009 saw a huge rise in social network users and applications centered around these networks. Apps made for mobile devices will see a steep rise with smartphones combined with their App Stores.
• Real-Time Communication and Collaboration -Google Wave and Twitter are already reducing the time barrier which used to exist. With more apps and features available in the future, real-time communication and collaboration would become more easier and relevant.
• Smartbooks – A device falling between smartphones and netbooks. To be sold through mobile operators, these will be of huge use to all users. Emergence of Smartbooks might even kill the entire netbooks category.
• Mobile Operator Wars – Once Mobile Number Portability is available in India it’ll create huge price wars between mobile operators thereby benefiting users.
• Storage – Wider usage of Flash Drives and other solid state drives would be seen. Availability of these storage devices at an affordable level would probably mean the death of existing rotating drives like CDs and DVDs.

Update : One more feature I’ve always wanted. I hope this becomes feasible in 2010.

• Status Updates to the Caller on mobile phones – Whenever someone calls me, they either hear the boring ring or some song as a caller tune. Instead I’d like some feature through which I can tell my status to my callers.

Update – After 3 months.

I’ve been neglecting my supposedly ‘new’ blog for such a long time that Google still ranks my old blogspot blog ahead of the new one. The reason for the neglect might have been because of my busy schedule throughout the semester and may also be because I’ve been posting regularly at my twitter profile – @alagappanr and my facebook profile = fb/alagappanr.

My blog was crying for some fresh content. So I guess its time I start posting content on this new blog and get its ‘page rank’ up.

So by the time I’m typing this post 7 semesters of my college life are over and I’m now just a few months away from being a full engineer. For all those curious guys who want to know about NITT Placements – I’m not yet placed and I don’t intend to talk about it here.

In the past few months hundreds of things happened and that includes me writing my CAT Exam, The Great Chennai Run, a trip to Ooty+Coonoor, supposedly an agitation against the college mess, watching all seasons of 24 and TBBT, reading a lot of books among other stuff. I just feel this semester could have been a lot better and I hope the next one is.

Ubuntu #Fail

I’ve been using Ubuntu for about a year now and this has never happened before. This is Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. #Fail

Update: Already there have been quite a few accusations that this image is a fake one. And I want to make it crystal clear that this image is not a fake and is just a screenshot of what I experienced a few minutes back in Ubuntu.

New Domain, New Blog

Hi Guys.

Welcome to this blog. This is my new domain, gifted to me by my brother, Vivek. I have now moved my existing blogspot to this domain and I will discontinue blogging there.

New Domain and New Blog and hence the renewed enthusiasm to blog more. From now on you can expect more exciting new content in this website and I hope it is of use to you.

Go throught the various widgets and links on the sidebar. You will find interesting content.

Firefox

Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers, commonly used by computer users in the world. I guess it needs no introduction. Firefox is the best ever browser that I’ve used till now. I’ve been using firefox ever since I actively started using the internet.

Why Firefox is so great..?

Best thing about Firefox is that it is open source. So there are thousands of people modifying the source code to create their own features, add-ons, plug-ins and themes. Firefox has indeed become a common phenomenon. This is because internet browsing has become more personalized. This is possible firefox allows you to install plug-ins and add-ons. Moreover it has been present in the market for a long period now and thanks to that there are a lot of features specifically designed for firefox which aren’t available in other browsers like Chrome.

Firefox is considered to be one of the safest browsers and are recommended by many IT experts. A sophisticated phishing security has been included in Firefox 3. If you don’t want any malware to enter into your PC, then using Firefox is a great choice.

It is the best option available among the web browsers available today. Click here to Download.