Torn Elements

I love Google Chrome. It’s a great light weight browser I’ve been using since version 1. My only complaint has been the fact it sticks out like a sore thumb on my desktop. Even on Windows7 you still get that ‘blue’ theme look. (Yes, I realize you can skin Chrome, but lets face it – the themes for Chrome suck big time.)

Today the first updates for Ubuntu 10.04 came down the pipes. Amongst them was an update for Google Chrome. (I run version 5 from the Dev channel) Thinking nothing more of it, I applied the updates and rebooted my machine.

When I came back and started Google Chrome and almost fell off my chair! It actually ‘FIT’ my desktop theme!

As you can see, not only is the desktop colour scheme FULLY supported, but the system icons are also in use.

It looks very nice on my desktop now. Like it belongs there.

Thanks Chrome!

Software Google Chrome, Web Browsers

As much as I’m trying to get away from FireFox, addons like this keep me coming back!

This morning I woke to an email from SitePoint announcing they have released a great little tool for FireFox’s FireBug addon.

FireScope integrates code referencing to Firebug.  (Click for larger view)

Besides the search box, there’s some handy information here. The above shows information on the BODY tag, including it’s W3C status and browser compatibility. This allows you to instantly know if special consideration for certain browsers may be in order. 

It’s funny… I’ve only seen the ‘buggy’ reference applied to IE in all the code I’ve looked at so far.

FireScope also offers code examples for elements. (Click for larger view)

Likely not a big deal for the pros, but I can see something like this being very handy to the newcomer to coding. Personally, I find myself doing a fair bit of referencing. This will make that aspect of my job much easier.

There are more features I haven’t played with yet. You can read about those on the FireScope page at SitePoint.

Great job guys!

Software Web Browsers

No, that’s not a typo. It’s actually my dig at MicroSoft’s failed attempt at symbolism.

To the right you can see the picture of the fish which is proudly displayed in Windows 7 Beta. The fish is called a Betta (Beh-Ta) or Betta splendens to be accurate.

Earlier today someone in Twitter asked if the fish was related to PETA’s ‘Sea Kitten’ drive. Possibly, but I don’t think so.

The common mispronunciation is to call this fish a ‘Beta’.

I can’t say if MicroSoft was thinking the fish was indeed called a ‘Beta’, or if it was just a cool pic to ship with their Betta (ha!) version of Windows 7.

After all, they’re programmers, not nature enthusiasts.

Software Asides

After a huge falling out with FireFox over memory usage, I was once again in the market to try another browser. I’ve been around the net for some time now and have found that all the other major market share browsers have ticked me off in one way or another.

Be it page rendering problems, high memory usage, processor bog downs, or just PITA interfaces, they’ve all let me down.

I’d looked at Chrome briefly during it’s very short Beta period. As impressed as I was I simply dismissed it as too early for full time use.

Out of Beta now, it was time to give this browser another look.

It’s really very good! After 2 solid days of running Chrome, I don’t see any of the issues which always seem to plague me with other browsers. Normally by now I would have had to shut down and restart other browsers for one reason or another. It appears that when you close a tab in Chrome, you actually get ALL the memory it was using back. Amazing!

The only essential thing keeping me from switching to Chrome full time is it’s lack of developer tools. I’m talking about tools like FireBug for FireFox and the like. Until Chrome sees tools like this I will be forever tied to using FireFox for development. However, I’m hoping good things will come from Chrome V2 in regard to this.

I realize there’s a console in the Developer options of Chrome but it lacks FireBug’s ability to edit CSS and other elements on-the-fly. I rely on FireBug heavily as it’s fantastic for fine tuning layouts, styles or just quickly inspecting how other sites achieve effects. (Yeah, I’m a big ol’ snoop! )

Chrome seems to be light and efficient which is perfect for ol’ FrankenPuter here. Hopefully that will remain in version 2.

If you’re running a slower system like me, then definitely have a look at Google Chrome. Your computer will thank you.

Software Google, Web Browsers