Oladipo Ademola Esq

I know I have posted in a while. Been trying to put together a new project. I hope this works wells. Only 4 Naija. Watch out.

Still on Google Chrome. Try downloading a file. During the download, attempt to close the browser.

What Chrome did? It closed. No warning. No opportunity to complete my download. Just canceled. Did not even pause the download.

And no, nothing under the settings.

And why does Google Chrome download page identify Chrome as Firefox?

Google’s new browser, Chrome crashed completely today while I was browsing a page in LifeHacker. I came across a link and on mouseover, I got this

The culprit, a link that does nothing but wishes for the destruction of the Google browser. Lets blame Microsoft.

evil:%

Typing the link in the Omnibar also elicits the same response.

Internet explorer 8 beta, just ignores it with no response whatsoever.

Firefox pops up a dialog

I was asking about a course from a friend and he mentioned Ladoke Akintola University. Being the net nerd, I googled LAUTECH. First link to their official website, good thing.

First, the Academics link goes no where. Shame.

Second, they have a link to Open Courseware. Suspicious. Sounds like the Open Courseware offering from MIT. And yes, it was. Or rather, it is.

Spring lectures in Nigeria? Oh Please…

No words. Just a picture.

But

Flash crash across all the tabs. Where is the isolation?

Still on screenshots.

I came across a nasty site which kept trying to force me to install a “fake” codec. Chrome had a feature, obviously to prevent other dialogs. But that did not work. Google team take note.

After I received a facebook message from a friend of mine, early this morning, asking about Google Chrome. I googled and waited patiently for the download. I read almost all the available reviews (previews) and even set up a google alert to be notified of the download as soon as it was available.

15 minutes after the download link went live, I got my copy. It seems like the Chrome team must have been using using Picasa a lot, because there was some kind of resemblance in the loading.

Problem 1: Reload All/Refresh All Tabs

I came across the first problem of the new architecture. If you lose your Internet connection and all your pages turn to “Page not founds”, how do you reload all the pages without having to do it one at a time. Firefox has a lovely “Reload All Tabs” menu. Internet Explorer has a “Refresh All” menu.

Was it wrong for the Google team to assume that everyone has a steady Internet connection?

Problem 2: Restore Closed Tabs

Just discovered another problem. If I mistakenly close 2 or more tabs. How do I recover them? Ok, I go to history, but I cant open the history link in a new window. Or am I missing something? Yes, I was. You have to hold the “Ctrl” button to open a new tab. But what happened to the right mouse button we are so used to in the other browsers they are improving upon.

Still testing. Will report as I go along. Ouch, I can not save sessions.

Update

I believe the Google’s choice of not blending with my OS’ theme is a bad idea. Now Chrome stands out like a sore thumb.

Yet another update

Chrome seems to assume that I do not want to read a parts of a webpage after I might have perused it. My synaptic touchpad allows me scroll down but chrome does allow scroll up. The mouse wheel works. Thank God.

How do I find text on a page? Coming from a company who deals in search, this obvious omission is a crime. Found it

Most LifeHacker desktop showcases feature the desktop with the windows minimized. Seriously, how many people actually work with the windows minimized. My desktop allow me to work in almost any condition.

Because I have a widescreen, I used the advantage of width over height in the placement of my taskbar. I dragged it off to the right. Some of my fellows in the office, use the left side, but I found out that using one side for the “always on” windows was preferable (They do not use the vista sidebar – so…)

In my set up, I tried as much as possible, to use the base applications that come with the operating system, because in my opinion, windows becomes slow when you install applications on it. The base operating system is quite fast. Compare a 2 month system with a fresh installation, the old system has applications installed.

Theme
Vista Aero (Basic and Not) provide way too much eye candy that really helps work. So I patched my OS to allow other themes, and I installed Slan XP for Vista. Lovely theme (needs a few tweaks, but it works). I am using it as is. Microsoft, do I really need that 4 pixel border?

Taskbar
Like I said earlier, taskbar -> to the right, to the right. But you are not irreplacable (in my view). You just need to be upgraded. The right side placement allows me to use the start button on top, my running tasks, my quicklaunch (always visible) and other icons. It evens shows the full date and time (don need an extra clock on my desktop).

Start Button and Menu
A lot of people like to kill the start button, not me. It works just fine. Though, I must confess, I hardly use it. By now, many people would have guessed it. Yes, I do use the mouse a lot. Good mouse use, faster than the keyboard, but then again, there are pros out there.

Vista Sidebar
Placed by the taskbar (so that all by bars to right, windows to the left). I have the Lava Lamp gadget (probably the only non functional item on my desktop – purely for show).

The Outlook gadgets. I am a heavy outlook user – tried Thunderbird for 3 weeks and ran back to outlook like an addict. Yes, I am addicted to outlook. Thunderbird tries, but Outlook rocks.

I once tried downloading a notes gadget for the sidebar and cancelled the download before it started. The default notes gadget works well for me.

Multiple Desktops
I tried it a number of times – Deskscapes, Virtual Desktop Manager, Desktops. They all went the same route. Uninstallation. Just could not get used to it. Rather than have a radical new view of my desktop, I prefer easing myself into a new work layout. Close a program, open another. Minimize an application, restore another. And yes (yet again), a number of applications freeze when run on multiple desktop instances – think Firefox Portable.

Desktop Icons
My desktop is most times a temporary placeholder for some files before being moved to their respective locations. Usually, my desktop has only 1 icon. The default as Microsoft commanded it. The almighty recycle bin .

A lot of times, desktop showcases only showcase the visible portions. But we all know that some invisible applications make us very productive. My list includes:

• Nokia PC Suite. Continuous synchronization of my Nokia E61i. A must for me or any Nokia mobile phone user.
• Proxy Master: between home, office and a number of places, changing proxy settings used to be an issue, until this guy came along. Looking for an open source alternative.
• Media Monkey and Foobar2000. Great music players. I hardly play video. No point, my home theater does that very well.
• Picasa with the Facebook plugin. Lovely picture application. Nuff said.
• Windows Live Writer: an awesome desktop blogging application. Since most of my clients websites use WordPress as a CMS, I can easily update the sites from my system even if my Internet connection is misbehaving.
• MS Paint: quick application to paste my screenshot and remove un-needed portions.
• Jon’s Background Switcher: lovely program for finding backgrounds. Though it is on suspension, after it found the current wallpaper.I am so in love with it.