Cutting the Cord

Since last spring, I've gone without cable at home.  Initially I had been using the Windows Media Server in Windows 7 and my Xbox360.  Not a great solution, but it was cost effective, as it would have cost me more to build my own media centre PC, which I really didn't in the first place.  In August, I picked up a Sony Internet Player, which is their latest Google TV set top box.  That lead to me selling the Xbox, since I only owned 2 games for it, and simply wanted it for media streaming.  I might never have gotten rid of it, and moved to a Google TV based system if Microsoft wasn't idiotic in putting a paid system like Netflix behind it's own Xbox Live Gold paywall.  Bad design, bad decisions lead to a lost customer.

However, this isn't about my media streaming solution.  This is about life without cable.  Netflix, and some direct media streaming from Plex Media server were the early main sources of media streaming, and more recently in the last couple of months, Youtube subscriptions have been becoming my main sources of media and entertainment.

So, now that I've moved to Toronto and am in temporary housing with free digital HD cable until we move into our new home, surely I must be realizing how much I miss cable...right?

Well, not exactly, and maybe not for the reasons I thought.  I've probably got about 150 channels of television to pick from every night.  I'm finding I'm really only watching sports in the background, while I tap away at my laptop through the night, or maybe playing a solo game of Forbidden Island.   Now, you might think that of course I'm just watching sports.  I'm Canadian, and the NHL playoffs are on, including a Toronto/Boston series that went to game 7.  I do enjoy playoff hockey, but there is more to my decision to watch sports than just that.

The honest truth is, there just isn't enough on the TV channels that I want to watch, and sports simply fills bigger blocks of time.  It takes me several minutes to make my way through the aforementioned 150 channels which simply serves to annoy me.  Now, a couple of weeks ago, if I wanted to watch something on my GoogleTV box, it took me as long to look through Netflix and Google Play Movies for something to watch.  However, the scrolling through the TV listings is so... force fed.  I can't simply gloss over the shows and channels i have no interest in.  Shows I am interested in aren't grouped together.  The fact that I have to scroll through channels is only compounded by the fact that I need to then scroll through timeblocks.  I don't care how behind the selection on Netflix is, I don't think I can bring myself to pay for cable when it's distribution method is still so impersonal.  Sure, I can search for shows by name.  What if I don't know what shows are available?  What if I want to try a new show based on my previous viewings that I enjoyed?

Now that Netflix is getting into it's own shows, and they're releasing entire seasons at once, the concept of weekly episodes seems archaic to me.  American based television series are seeming to be too slow moving, with too many filler episodes that carry on for seasons that are too long.  Give me 10 or 12 episodes a year where the storyline moves.  Stop drawing out seasons for 23, maybe even 26 episodes simply to score ratings and ergo advertising revenue.  Case in point are previous favourites of Bones and Castle.  Both of which have good antagonists in the major storyline, that get forgotten for 8+ episodes in a row in the middle of the season.  Don't even get me started on the weeks of repeats between sweeps weeks.

At this point, I can honestly say that the only thing that could possibly bring me back to a cable provider (whether actual cable, or pseudo cable/fibre provider) is going to be a la carte channel selection, and even then, I can't see me going with broadcast channels.  Maybe a couple of speciality channels, but even then, unless the model of television show production changes, I'm not sure that will even be enough for me to come back.  For now, I'll sit here with my Chromebook laptop, watching youtube videos that are entertaining and recommended for me based on what I watch and like, while in the background plays the sounds of a hockey game.

The truth of the matter is that I have missed my simple GoogleTV box more over the last week, than I have missed cable over the last 12 months.

Chromebook - Hands on [updated]

I picked up a Samsung Chromebook a week ago due to a variety of circumstances. Primarily due to the fact that I have just recently moved to a new city and won't have access to my actual desktop PC for a few weeks while my wife and I deal with selling our old home, buying a new one, and moving. For those that know me, I am a Google loyalist and live largely within the cloud of Google Apps. I was bringing my tablet (Motorola Xoom Wifi) and my smartphone (HTC One S) and while I love and use both as daily drivers, I knew that I would want something that was a bit better at browsing the web and had a full(ish) keyboard, and so a Chromebook was the obvious choice. These are my feelings and thoughts now that I'm a week into using the notebook. If you're looking for a detailed review with full hardware specs, you'll be able to find those details in other top quality review websites. Personally, I'm more interested in sharing my user experience.

Build
The build quality for this laptop is pretty good, probably par for what you expect. It's a plastic (or poly carbonate maybe) body which makes it nice and light, but definitely not as nice as an aluminum body. Obviously an effort to keep costs down, which is fine for my expectations. The body does have the slightest bit of give in the right front corner which tends to be the corner that I pick the computer up with when it is opened, and so it creaks once in a while. I wish it didn't do that, but I think it's a matter of sounding worse than it actually feels.

The keyboard is the 'chiclet' style, and feels very nice. The key sizes are nice and I find it very comfortable to type on. I do however miss the Delete, Home and End keys. I don't miss the Function keys though (F1, F2, etc...) which have been replayed by keys like Back, Forward, Reload, Full Screen, Next Application, Brightness and Volume controls.

 The touchpad is multitouch, and performs well. Like most modern touchpads, there are no buttons, the entire touchpad itself can be clicked if you prefer that sense of feedback. I tend to find my self just using the old tap method for the touch pad controls.

 The screen isn't amazing, but it works well for what it's designed for. The off axis viewing is pretty poor, but no worse than my wife's laptop which cost about 4x as much 5 years ago. Again, it's a cost control decision, and I'm more than satisfied with the laptop's build given it's sub $250 price.

Chrome OS
I want to start off by saying that I 'get' Chrome OS. I could see myself replacing my desktop in the near future with a Chromebox (similar to a Chromebook, but you plug your keyboard/mouse/monitor into it). I'm not sure how many Chromeboxes are out there, but that's neither here not there. I think that if a lot of people really assessed and tracked the amount of time they spend at their home PC, they'd find most if not all of their time was using a web browser, or in an email program. There is a lot of noise about ChromeOS's inability to run local non-web applications. I don't do a lot of photo editing, video editing, or even a lot of document based work, so I can exist on my laptop entirely via a browser. What ChromeOS offers me is speed, simplicity, and cost control. I've covered the cost control piece, but right now I want to talk about the speed. ChromeOS is able to do something that Microsoft has been trying to claim for years, and that is an extreme fast boot. You're talking about seconds from being powered off, to being at the desktop sign-in. Once I put my desktop password in, in less than 2 seconds, I'm logged on and the browser is open and loaded. There is something to be said about how impressive this is, and the benefits of running a lighter OS than Windows, or even something like Ubuntu.

As a completely browser based OS, the browser's performance is key. The browser performance is what sold me on the idea of using a Chromebook rather than just use my tablet while I'm here alone in Toronto. As much as I love my Xoom, the browser experience simply isn't the same as a desktop browser, either in speed or in the rendering of the websites that I use. Some websites treat the Xoom's browser as a mobile browser, and some don't. The Chrome browser on the Chromebook is fast and smooth, and I have experience no issues in terms of flash based websites. The original iterations of ChromeOS had the browser stuck in fullscreen, with alt tab based navigation between tabs, and minimal UI. The current experience gives you a desktop with customizable wallpaper and a quick launch/taskbar along the bottom. You can also resize the browser and run multiple windows on the desktop at once. In my experience, I'm running it full screen anyways, but I can appreciate other users having a choice. It also makes things a little easier for brand new users to feel comfortable in an approach that is consistent with the last 20 years or so of computing.

The expected 'applications' are here. Youtube, Gmail, drive, etc... Blogger wasn't installed, but was easily found in the chrome market, but really these applications are shortcuts to the websites. The Google Docs (word processor, slideshow/presentation, spreadsheets, etc..) all work offline, so you can edit your docs, and they will sync up when you'e online next. Unfortunately, apps like Gmail and Calendar don't seem to work work offline, which is weird to me. I have no problems using Calendar and Gmail offline on my tablet, so I'm not entirely sure what the issue is with them on Chrome. It's entirely possible that it's an issue with the settings and will be something that I need to investigate further. [Updated below] The reality of my usage is that I'm always online with the laptop anyways, and carry my tablet around for more casual offline usage.

Something that I haven't had a chance to test out and play with is the Chrome Remote Desktop. This is a browser extension that allows you to take control of any desktop where you have a Chrome browser and the Remote Desktop installed. This could be the most useful application on the Chromebook, as it could allow me to make my way through rare situations where I need a unique desktop application. The reason I haven't had a chance to use it yet because my desktop is current in storage, so I cannot speak to it's performance.

One of the common complaints is that you could spend a little more money, get a windows based laptop, install the Chrome browser and get the same access you have on ChromeOS, PLUS the option for desktop/windows software. However, my experience with ANY Windows based PC (and any Ubuntu system) is that they simply do not age well. As apps get installed, and drivers get updated, the system runs relatively slower. I say relatively for a very important reason. The CPU doesn't run slower, but the bloat and increase in size of operating systems makes for more overhead. If you have a PC from 1997 running Windows 95, and have never installed OS updates, new drivers or software, realistically it should run as fast today as it did 16 years ago. My father, in fact, has a PC from the late 90s, running Win98 that isn't connected to the internet. He ran the same accounting software and original printer on it until just this year, with no problem. Meanwhile the main family PC running Windows XP and connected to the internet provides a much more negative experience for the end user.

While ChromeOS is ALWAYS up to date (OS updates are automatic in the background, and the OS needs to be verified in order to boot, making it very secure) the relative lightness of the OS and focus on simplicity gives me every reason to believe it will have a longer life in terms of relevance. Remember, all of the 'apps' installed are pretty much links to a website with minimal impact on the OS itself.

There is one thing that I am disappointed in is that the games available on the Chrome Web store aren't filtered to exclude games that won't run on ChromeOS. Now, I'm not under any delusions that this is a gaming laptop, but I did expect that if I can see games in the Chrome Web store that they would run on the ChromeOS. Basic games like Mahjongg play fine, and the required Angry Birds is there too, of course. You can even install Angry Birds locally to play offline. I haven't played much of the games, so I can't give you a feel for how well, or how many of the games work. I simply know that I ran into a few that did not.

Overall, I've been very VERY pleased with this laptop, and will likely miss it when my wife joins me in Toronto. Right now, she has a full fledged laptop for gaming that doesn't leave the desk because of it's size/weight, and an HP netbook that she takes with her when she's working outside of the house. Right now the plan is that she inherits the Chromebook to replace the netbook, and that a new desktop will replace her laptop.

If you're looking for a PC to surf facebook, twitter, or any other websites and aren't looking for something to install your accounting software or games onto, I think you would be well served by this nice, light, fast laptop. As we come up to Google I/O (their annual developer conference and generally full of product announcements) I'm very interested to see what else is coming from ChromeOS.

[update] I have confirmed that the Calendar and Gmail do work properly offline, I just hadn't set it up properly (and in the case of Gmail, installed the Gmail Offline app).

Mini Review - The Avengers vs The Dark Knight Rises

So the two big movies this summer were Comic Book based movies, which is a genre of movie that isn't exactly showing signs of slowing down in either volume of content or volume of money being made.  Not only are they the two biggest movies of the summer, but they also have some of the top opening weekends of all time, with that title held by The Avengers.

Obviously, I saw them both, and was really looking forward to both.  Admittedly, I'm a Marvel fanboy, and have never been very attached to DC franchises, but Christopher Nolan's treatment of Batman was so very refreshing and excellently executed.

The Avengers was an impressive culmination of at least 5 years of work by Marvel producers, tying in the characters from their marquee movies, taking away the need of an original story in it's climactic group movie.  For characters like Thor, Iron-Man and Captain America to have been given their solo movie treatments with different directors and writers and still have them all mesh together seamlessly in the ensemble movie was a marvel (sorry) of editorial oversight by the people in charge.   Even the Hulk, with the two commercially and technically dubious solo movies finally was done justice.  Immediately after having seen The Avengers, I was ready and wanting to immediately sit through a second showing.  Joss Whedon has again proven that he is the master of giving fans what they want to see, and choreographing perfectly the dynamics of groups that don't necessarily believe in the same moral views.  I truly hope that this buys Whedon some damn collateral the next time he takes a show to TV, if he ever bothers with an outlet that has spurned him so often.

I think the most impressive piece was that Whedon was able to make me care about (IMO) second stringers Hawkeye and Black Widow.   I think Jeremy Renner was very good in his role, and even Scarlett Johansson was passable as Black Widow.

I did end up seeing The Avengers a couple time in theatres, which is the first time I've paid to see a movie multiple times in a theatre since The Matrix (4 times in the theatre when it was released) which I think demonstrates how much fun and how well this movie was done.

The Dark Knight Rises is also the culmination of 7 years of work, although this time it was one director's impressive vision and body of work.   What Nolan has done with Batman will make it very difficult for any director to follow without completely changing the dark feel of Batman.  I sincerely hope this does not meana  return to the neon foolishness of Joel Schumacher in the late 90s.  I would guess that Dark Knight Rises was critically acclaimed more than The Avengers, based on it being more serious in it's writing and style.

Upon finishing The Dark Knight Rises, I simply felt... nothing.  There was no excitement, there was no talking with my wife about scenes in the car on the way home and there was no talking about it at the next day.  I enjoyed the movie, overall it was pretty much what I expected to see, and maybe that's the difference.  The Avengers gave me what I wanted to see.   Some might consider that pandering to the fans, but I'm sorry, I'm paying money to see a movie, and sometimes I want to see things for MY enjoyment, not for the director's.

The Dark Knight also had more annoyances for me.  For one, Banes voice was annoying at best, and way too difficult to hear.  It absolutely broke my immersion in the movie.  Everytime he spoke, he sounded like it was doing a bad Patrick Stewart impersonation through a drive thru speakerbox.  A very rare gaffe by Nolan, who's villains up to this point were very well done and easy to accept.  Even Anne Hathaway did well, both in her Selena Kyle and Catwoman roles.

I felt the ending was unnecessarily direct.   Without going into spoilers, I would have appreciated either a darker or more questionable ending than was provided, and it would have been more fitting to Nolan's handling of the franchise.  Too many things were wrapped up that didn't need to be overtly hammered over our heads.

Now Nolan is involved at some level with the Man of Steel movie, which is a redo of Superman, and rumours are that Nolan will be overseeing the DC major franchises for a Justice League ensemble movie in 2018 or something.  I'll reserve judgment on this until I see how the Man of Steel is pulled off, but I'm not seeing a dark gritty Justice League doing as well as the lighthearted, exciting, over the top action of the Avengers which holds true to the source comic books.  Yes, Batman works as gritty realism.  Superman, Wonder Woman... not so much, but Nolan has the collateral with me for me to give it a chance at least.

There, again, is the difference.   I'm willing to give Christopher Nolan a shot with involvement with Superman based on his body of work.   I was absolutely unwilling to accept ANYONE by Joss Whedon a chance with The Avengers 2, which has since been confirmed as belonging to Whedon.

So for me, The Avengers was by far the better movie, is recommended by me for anyone whether or not you enjoy comics, whereas The Dark Knight was a worthwhile end to a strong trilogy.

Review - HTC One S

It became time to finally start looking at cellphone upgrades this summer, and this time around, I was going to go for a little more high end than I normally do for my cellphones.  Chasing the top performing phones is an ultimately losing proposition because you'll only be the top dog for a matter of weeks before something bigger, faster and 'better' is released.

My shopping and investigation led me to the HTC One S and the Galaxy Nexus, and it was a very difficult decision, and one that I have had twinges of regret once in a while.  I'll get to that a little later.  I went with the HTC One S because it was brand new, and a top performing phone.   I think it's sleek, very well made, and absolutely top notch.

Build Quality
The phone itself is surprisingly thin and has a very solid feel to it.  I would say it feels almost as sturdy as my older HTC Legend, which was made from a solid body of aluminum.  The finish on the case looks very nice, it's not simply a brushed metal finish, and is a metallic matte grey colour.  On the top of the back of the phone is the camera, with a blue accent ring around the lens.  The camera lens does protrude a bit from the body of the phone, but my simple case is thicker than that protrusion.   The volume rocker is on the right side of the phone, and the power button is on the top of the phone along with the headphone jack.  The micro USB is on the left side.

Some with smaller hands may find the power button on the top as being hard to reach, but I happen to prefer that location to my wife's Galaxy Note which has the power button on the right side, which I find awkward to use.  That's a matter of preference I'm sure, but my last 3 phones have been HTC, and I'm used to it;s location along the top.

On the front of the phone is a very smart looking black border on the screen that extends down the sides of the phone.  This gives the illusion of the phone being even thinner from the side, and makes for a very nice feeling on the fingers as the screen feels truly edge-to-edge with no bevel at all.  There are 3 capacitive touch buttons on the bottom (Back, Home and Recent Apps) and the front facing camera is on the top right of the phone, and the speakers are actually tiny holes drilled right into the solid body of the phone, again lending to it's solid build and design esthetic.  Hidden in one of those tiny holes is a single LED which is the notification LED.  A simple design choice that speaks to the thought that went into this phone.

The only feeling of bad design is the cover that goes on the back of the phone around the camera, which is where the SIM goes.  There is a bit of squeak, and hollowness to it which is disappointing.  Aside from that, the phone feels absolutely great in the hand, albeit a little slick to hold on to, which was  the driving factor in me getting a case for the phone.

Audio
The new HTC phones comes with 'Beats Audio', but to be 100% honest, I'm not entirely clear on what that is, aside from an equalizer.  My phone didn't come with headphones which is a weird decision by either the carrier or the maker when you're touting something like Beats Audio.   With that being said, the audio quality is good when listening to music, but truth be told I sometimes play music with the Beats Audio option enabled, and sometimes disabled.  As far as the in call quality is concerned, it is very good, and the speaker phone works well too.

Camera
To say that the rear facing camera is fast is an understatement.  The time between me pressing the camera app icon and the camera launching and being ready to take a photo is barely measurable.  There are also realtime camera filters, and the ability to hold the button down on the screen and take several photos per second which works very well for sports photos.  The neatest trick though is the ability to take photos while recording video without interruption.  I'm not much of a picture taker, but this camera is the best I have seen on any mobile device.

Speed
This is one of the few times where you'll get technical stats from this review (If you want specs, you can them all over the internet, this review is about user experience).   This phone has a dual core 1.5GHz processor which makes for an amazingly quick phone.  Are there faster phones out there?  Of course there are, but this phone is far from a slouch.  I'll be getting a lot of miles out of this phone based on it's speed and build quality.

Software
Here's where HTC either wins people over, or loses them completely.   The phone comes with the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android modified by what is called HTC Sense.  Sometimes it's minor design changes, and other times it's more major application integration and functionality.  While I love the pure Android experience, I really do like what HTC has done with this new version of Sense.  It's far less obtrusive and very sharp visually, and for me was a major selling feature for the phone.

Now, the software is where those moments of regret have come in with my choice of phones.  When I bought the phone, JellyBean had not yet been offficially unveiled, and I figured it would be a very minor release without a lot of updates, given how major ICS was.  JellyBean was announced and unveiled about 3 or 4 weeks and the speed upgrades from 'Project Butter' and Google Now were far and above what I was expecting to see.  It was announced that the Galaxy Nexus and the Xoom (which I am using to write this review) were going to be the first devices to get this operating system upgrade.  I have an irrational need to have the most up to date systems for my phones and tablets, and I knew it would eventually mean having to root my HTC One S, and installed a custom system with JB.   However, I have been using CyanogenMod 10 which is their JellyBean release, and while I am very happy with the system, I do miss some of the HTC Sense features.  When HTC gets around to upgrading my phone to JellyBean themselves, I can honestly see myself going back to their system, which I think speaks to how well it works.

Overall Impressions
As you might expect, I am very very pleased by this phone.  At the time it was released it was the top performance phone in North America.  It's bigger brother, the HTC One X, has a higher screen resolution but was lacking the quad core processor of it's international version.  Higher screen density with the same processor means it is slower.  I've had this phone for almost 2 full months now, and looking at the current phone market, there isn't a phone that I would trade this one for, and that includes the massively popular Samsung Galaxy S3.

Editorial
Since I have already mentioned the Galaxy S3, I simply do NOT understand the incredible appeal of the Samsung Galaxy line of phones.   I find their physical design very underwhelming, and the physical Home button baffles me.  Touch Wiz (which is Samsung's Android modifications akin to HTC Sense) really seems to me to lack a strong design aesthetic.   At the same time that I bought my HTC One S, my wife bought a Samsung Galaxy Note, and while it's a great phone, and she's very very pleased with it, she does miss HTC Sense. I think HTC pushes the design envelope more, and I don't see the same from Samsung.  HTC has also acknowledged that people who by there phones want to root and unlock them, and HTC has made the process VERY easy in direct response to their community.  I think the fact that HTC launched their high end phones in the forthcoming shadow of the unstoppable GS3 launch may have hurt them.  HTC has had a difficult year financially, and I'm disappointed that their hard work isn't paying off as much for them.  I do want my next phone to be an HTC, and I just hope there is still room in the market for them in 2 years.

Now, to HTC, I will simply say, get that Jelly Bean release done quickly.

Cellphone Showdown - The preliminaries

I've started the 6 month process of shopping for new cellphone upgrades.  Right now I have an HTC Legend, a relatively low end (mid range at the time) android phone.  My early upgrade isn't until the fall, but that doesn't mean I haven't started shopping around.

Here's my current short list based on what's out and known right now:

Samsung Galaxy Nexus- I love the idea of a 'pure' google experience phone, but the specs are a little behind other phones even when it was released before Christmas.  The build of the phone, the curve, and the ICS operating system are all very enticing.

Samsung Galaxy S II - On paper better than the Galaxy Nexus, but there's something I just don't like about Samsung phones.  If I could get the specs of this phone, in the body and OS of the Nexus then that would be the leader of the list for me.  Yes, I know that the Galaxy Nexus is made by Samsung, but it just doesn't look or feel like a Samsung to me.    I don't know if it's the build button at the bottom, or what, but it just doesn't appeal to me, better specs or not.

Motorola Droid  RAZR (or RAZR Maxx) - I have a Motorola Xoom, and love it, strong build quality, solid OS, clean of crud (relatively).  I like the design of the RAZR, the thin lines, the edged corners, and that they are in the midst of being bought by Google which suggests that it will be quick to get upgrades and loving attention.  (unsupported by fact, of course).

Finally, the big boy in my wish list right now is the HTC One X.  I have an HTC phone now, as does my wife, and my best friend (all Legends) and without exception, we love the phone.  HTC has made big moves in the last year in unlocking their phones (meaning they can be rooted, or opened for modification without having to jump through stupid hoops) and also making their modifications to the Android system (known as HTC Sense) lighter and faster.  Personally, I love the behind-the-scenes changes that HTC makes for it's phones.  This currently is possibly the most powerful Android phone, and ergo the most expensive, but I'm hoping that the summer will temper that pricing a little bit for when my contract comes up.

Of course, this list of phones will grow and shrink as new models are released.  On the horizon in the rumour mill are the Samsung Galaxy III S, and probably a newer RAZR.   As those phones are released, and as models become available with my current carrier of choice (Bell Mobility), I'll give hands-on impressions and see where I can steer my wife and friend to  join me on my quest for upgrades.

Browser Brouhaha

The browsers wars.  There has been more written on the fight between Microsoft and it's competitors in the web browser market than I can share or even summarize.  I'll leave the Netscape vs Microsoft for the history books, and instead speak briefly on the new browser wars between Google, Mozilla and Microsoft.  The current browser wars amount to two giants slugging it out with one plucky fella managing to stay on his feet.  What's interesting though, is that the plucky browser survives due in no small part to money from one of the giants.

First, to the browsers.  

2 or 3 years ago, if you told me that you ran Internet Explorer, the first thing I would have told you in order to secure your system was stop using it, and install Firefox.  However in my experience the newest version of Internet Explorer (IE 9) is actually a pretty solid browser.  It has solid web page performance, and is by most accounts very standards compliant. 

What do we mean when we talk about compliance with standards.  It's a web browser after all.  What does it have to comply with?  A web page, if coded to the proper standards should display the same on every browser that is also compliant to the standards.  This way web pages are neutral to what software you choose to use, just the same way that you car will run on gas from any gas station, your web browser should be able to display any web page.   However, what if the maker of 90% of the cars said "Starting this year, all of our cars will run on kerosene," then what would happen?   This is exactly what happened with IE6.  IE6 starting changing how is displayed, or rendered, web pages.   They had already won the browser war at that point, and if people wanted their webpages to display properly on 90%+ of the viewers, they had to start coding pages to Microsoft's mandated standards, and not the neutral HTML standards.  You started to see "Best viewed in IE6" everywhere on the web.  This ended up biting MS in the ass however, because businesses ALSO started coding their internal websites to those specifications, and when Microsoft started to see browsers like Firefox (and much later, Google Chrome) eat into their market share, they realized they couldn't just ride the IE6 bus forever.   However, when they wanted businesses to move to more modern and more secure browsers, the businesses couldn't because their internal sites didn't work properly on Microsoft's newer, more standards compliant browsers.

Back to IE9 though...  Microsoft claims that it's browser is more compliant to the agreed upon standards of HTML coding, specifically HTML5, than it's competitors, and they may just be right.  The HTML5 standards system is complicated and really not fully realized yet on the web, and so we can only base a browser's performance on test pages.  On Microsoft's own standards compliance tests, IE9 smokes everything else.  However, on Google's compliance tests, guess who wins?   Yup, Chrome.  Funny how each browser performs better on it's own test sites eh?

IE9 is the first MIcrosoft browser in a LONG time that I don't grimace when people tell me they use it.  It is a solid browser, scores well on security and also on performance.  By performance, I mean web page loading speed, but also just how long it takes to open the browser itself.  So, why did Microsoft push for being compliant with the standards?  For the longest time, Mozilla's Firefox browser has been the darling of the coders and of the folks who take their web browsing seriously.  Within Firefox, you could load 'addons' that block banner adds, make your browser faster, or more secure. Mozilla is the spiritual (and technical) successor to Netscape, Microsoft's old nemesis from the 90s.  As Netscape was going through it's final death throes, and was bought up by AOL, they spun off the code for their final browser to an open source project called Mozilla.  That forked (or split) again to Firefox.  So somewhere in Firefox lies the heart of Netscape, and it still wanted to take the big IE down.  Firefox fought for years against Microsoft, relying on support from volunteers and corporations like Google.   Google, to this day, remains a supporter and partner with Firefox.  A recent agreement that was extended continues Firefox's use of Google.com as it's default search engine (can be changed at any time by the user however) and it has been reported that Firefox gets an amazing 84% royalty from that search income which is absolutely extraordinary. 

I, for the longest time, used Firefox exclusively, however as it became bigger and better, it also became slower, and clunkier.  Sure, I was driving an M1 tank around the internet, completely protected from banner ads and malware attacks, but the browser handled like a tank.  It took a good 10-15 seconds to just launch.  However, I was a proud Firefox user, and recommended (damn near required) it's use for anyone on the internet that came to me for help.

Then one day, Google announced that it was getting into the browser market, and I was curious.  I downloaded the beta of Google's new browser, called Chrome, and it was like no browser I had seen.  The style and design of it was unique.  Mind you, there was very few, if any, options in that test version, but more importantly, it was FAST.   It took usually less than a second to open when I clicked it.  I had NEVER seen a browser open that fast.  And it seemed to load web pages with the same blinding speed.  But being test software, there was a lot of things it choked and died on, and so I stayed with Firefox.   Eventually, after I saw how quickly Google was adding features and improving Chrome, I moved over to it entirely.  IE and Firefox had development cycles measured in what felt like years.  Google was adding features and updating weekly if not daily.  And this was another major feature for me.  Google Chrome automatically updates.  There was no chasing updates on the website, or having to check to see what's new.  It just appeared when you launched the software.  I recognize that for system admins, software that automatically updates without them being able to audit or test for internal compatibility is a nightmare.  For me, a home user and geek enthusiast, this was amazing.  My wife will tell you how much it kills me to know there is a more up to date version of software that I can't get because it's in closed beta, or not available for my hardware.

IT KILLS ME.

With Chrome, I was able to easily designate whether I wanted to be on the Stable release, the less stable Beta release (usually updated every week or so) or the dangerous Developer release (usually updated daily).  Google Chrome was mocked and laughed at as a silly little kid, but I think people misunderstood how much we users wanted something carefree and FAST.  I don't have the ability to block as many ads as I can in Firefox (Google does make it's billions on advertising revenue), but when Google Chrome included the ability to have add-ons like Firefox does, at least I can block the annoying and ugly banner advertising.  It was at this point, when Google started to report 10% of the market, catching up to Firefox, that suddenly MS and Firefox started to work on smaller/leaner browsers that could compete with Google's new speed demon.  Recently, Google announced that Google Chrome (version 15) is the most commonly used browser version on the market.  Don't kid yourself though, because Chrome automatically updates, you don't have customers out there running a wide variety of versions.  However, IE7 and IE8 and IE9 are all out there in large numbers, and in total still represent a greater share than Chrome.   Some recent numbers place IE around 37%, Chrome at 27% and Firefox at 25%.  The remainder would be smaller browser markets like Safari on Apple devices, Opera and mobile device browsers.  This type of competition is great, because it has driven the developers to improve their coding instead of resting on established installations.

What browser do I recommend?  Personally, I'd use Chrome, Firefox8 or IE9 and be satisfied, I simply prefer Chrome.  It stuns me to sit here today and type that, but in today's browser wars, there is no clear good guy, no clear bad guy, just a 3 way fight for my heart, which I'm happy to sit back and benefit from as a user.

If you're using IE6 though, DO SOMETHING THAT ABOUT THAT NOW.

Twitter vs Facebook vs Google+

As I have found myself moving away from Facebook and towards Twitter over the last year, and now to Google+, I have friends and family asking why I'm moving to Google+ or even why Twitter in the first place.  Of course, the reasons that I use these 3 systems will be different from why others use them, but I'd like to try and explain in terms that are easy to understand for everyone, why I have moved across these different social systems.

Facebook was, obviously, the big player on the market, and certainly isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  With rumours of a Facebook IPO coming next week, we'll see just how much public and investor confidence there is behind this king of social media.  Of everyone I know, it's odd that someone ISN'T on Facebook, whereas years ago, the question was "Are you on Facebook?"   Today it's simply a given fact.  So, why am I moving away from it?  It's privacy controls for the longest time were dubious at best, and the spam from the Farmville zombies (amongst others) have really caused me to start ignoring Facebook.   Do I use it to contact folks that aren't on the other networks that I use?  Of course, and I do have a select group of people who's posts I continue to 'like' and comment on.  I don't think I need to explain the Farmville spam, if you're on Facebook, you're either addicted to Farmville, or annoyed at those who are.  This is called a Universal Constant.  However, the privacy concerns are that for the longest time, it wasn't convenient to control who can see what posts.  There are things that I want to share with co-workers, but not with family, and things that I want to share with my D&D group that I don't want to share with anyone else.  They have gotten better with that type of privacy control in the last 6-9 months, but the other issue that I personally had with Facebook with regards to privacy, is that it seemed I had to reset my privacy settings and 'filters' several times in the run of a year.   Am I deleting my Facebook account?  Certainly not.  It's there, I just don't post anything new, or produce anything for others to read there.  What type of information do I get there?  I get the occasional family update, some funny pics and links from old friends, and that's about it.

Twitter was something that I was vocally skeptical about when it first came out, but registered relatively early, even if to just camp my account name, before someone else took it.  So what is Twitter, and why would I use it instead of Facebook?  Twitter is faster, and leaner, and generally more relevant, if you follow the right people.  Twitter is in essence a messaging system restricted to 140 characters, that when you post your message, called a tweet, everyone who follows you can see it.   It broadcasts that message with no external filtering at all.  You can also send messages (called DMs, or Direct Messages) directly to people, by using their username.  For example, my Twitter account is @sirtoast.    So, on Twitter, if you include @sirtoast in the message, it'll flag for me to see it.  Twitter also uses a system called "Hashtags".   A Hashtag is a keyword to index your post.  If I wanted to make a post about the weather in Halifax, I might use #weather #Halifax as my hashtags, so that anyone can search for those keywords, and potentially see my post.  "The #weather in #Halifax is pretty crappy today".   Now, enough of the Twitter101.   Why do I use twitter?  It's fast and easy to follow a lot of groups and people and quickly scan what's going on.  Remember, we're only talking about 140 characters per message.  People tend to be concise, and more importantly, a surprising number of local services and businesses use it to communicate to the public.   Metro Transit uses it to notify of weather disruptions, and my favorite radio station (a shoutout to the crew at Live105 @live105loud) shares those weather updates, as well as other traffic info.   The usefulness of Twitter as a way to stay in touch with new events rather than simply "LOL, stubbed my toe this morning  #ouch" was proven last year.   One day at work, I heard about an altercation on Barrington street that I wanted to get more info on.  I went to CBC.ca, went to the Chronicle Herald website, and saw nothing.  So, I decided to test something, went to twitter, searched for "Barrington street" and "attack", and got a dozen tweets about what happened, including a link to a webpage with more info.  Ironically, I think it was the Chronicle Herald website, but at that point, I saw the usefulness of this service, that at one point I thought of as being vapid and useless.  However, the power of Twitter's 140 character limit, in my opinion, also means that for me, it will always be a tag-on service.  It's not going to be the source of information most of the time, just a quick way to share information that is being generated elsewhere.

Which brings me to the new kid on the block, Google+.  G+ is very interesting to me, in that it can be a bit of Twitter, and a bit of Facebook.   First, a disclaimer.  I am a big fan of Google's services, and I live in the Google ecosystem.   I'm typing this blog on my Motorola Xoom tablet running Google's Android operating system, on Blogger, which is a Google service as well.  I'll be linking this blog entry on G+ as soon as I'm done, and then post my G+ entry on Facebook and Twitter.  I want G+ to succeed.  Why do I like it?  It's not simple Google fanboy-ism.  Those privacy concerns that I had with Facebook, in controlling who gets to see what?  That's baked into the first version of G+ released.  The ability to post publicly, for everyone to see is there too, so it's like Twitter too.  However, G+ has built in location tagging (optional, can be disabled) so that I can see local public posts.  It's like twitter, but localized, and I don't need to follow people to see those public posts.  In Facebook, you 'friend' people.  In Twitter, you 'follow' them.  In Google+, you add people to your circles.  You can name, add and remove your circles, and with every post decide easily whether it's for the public, for all of your circles, or for individual people, or any mix in between.  For the Facebook gaming crowd, there are also Google+ games, but it's no obnoxious to those of us that don't play, don't want to play, and don't want to help you get corn for your farm. Using G+, you can emulate Twitter, including hashtags with public posting, Facebook wall posts by posting to all of your circles, or even email by posting something to just one or two people.  It's that flexibility and the integration into all of the Google services (Gmail, Contacts, Youtube, Google Music, etc...) that really interests me.  Some people are freaked out by the integration, I'd much rather have it unified, than have the disjointed levels of service that we've seen from Google in the past.  (for those Google Apps for Domains users, you KNOW what I'm talking about)  

I also use Google+ as a bit of a news/blog aggregator.  By having popular and interesting bloggers/personalities in my "Following" circle,  I can see what they're up to, what their views and opinions are, and seeing what's going on in the world.  One of the things that I haven't done yet with Google+ is use it's Hangout system.   You can have Voice/Video hangouts of 10 people.  So it's like a Skype video conference call.  And it's just built into the system on the webpage.  No software to download, no need to login (assuming you're logged into Google).  President Obama has used the Hangout system to connect with people on Google+, as have many celebrities, Google execs, and just groups of friends.

Google has been posting numbers in the range of 90 Million users already (the service only was launched last spring/summer) which is an amazing number.  It took much longer for Facebook and Twitter to reach those numbers.  Google hit 50 million in just 88 days, where it took Facebook over 1000 just to hit 25 million.  Mind you, Facebook was essentially creating social networking with every user, and Google is very well established and has a healthy level of cross pollination from it's other services like GMail.

So, if you're not on Google+, I invite you to take a look around, give it a shot.  I think you'll find the noise level is better than Facebook, but you'll also only get out of it as much as you put in.  I did a couple reviews on G+ that I have cross posted to this blog, and without any kind of publicity, I picked up followers from other countries based on the content of my reviews.  Twice as many people have me in their Google+ circles  since the summer than have followed me on Twitter, and I have more posts for longer on Twitter.  Smarter people than me will tell you how much engagement their is on Google+.   You simply get more and better engagement when you post/share things  on Google+ than you do on Twitter and Facebook. I strike that up to the well established quality of Google's search algorithms.  I think it's simply easier to find what you're looking for here.

The choice, of course, is yours, but if you're looking for me, I'll be on Google+.