25% - 35% Faster Google Chrome Beta

So, Chrome isn't gold, not on this years St. Patties Day. If you were trying to get a hold of the new current beta, which supports some impressive speed boost numbers in the javascript engine, then you probably noticed that when you tried to launch the installer, it drifted off looking for leprechauns and a shinny pot of gold.

The good news is that the installer has found it's rainbow again and you'll get your new beta version, when trying to install chrome now.

The version not only boasts speed improvements of up to 35% in javascript execution, but some of the other new features are form autofill, full page zoom and autoscroll, and a cool new way to drag tabs out to get a side-by-side view.

Google Chrome Blog: Google Chrome has a new beta

                

Oh, I have mail, Gmail Notification added to Labs!

There is finally a point of keeping your Gmail open in it's own tab in the browser. Now that the Gmail labs have added the title bar tweak in the Gmail labs.






Now you will know if you have un-opened mail to check in your gmail account with a quick glance at your browser tabs.

It's simple to add, just goto settings and then to labs.

Scroll down to Title Tweaks.

by Fedor K Changes order of elements in the browser title bar from "Gmail - Inbox (20) - Uncovered4you@gmail.com" to "Inbox (20) - Uncovered4you@gmail.com - Gmail". This way you are able (most of the time) to see if a new mail has arrived even if Gmail window is minimized.

Set it to Enabled.
Scroll down and save changes.

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Browser title bar tweaks

                

Gmail Multiple Inboxes isn’t combining mailboxes, But!

Almost, So close! Just not true Multi-Inbox handling.

Yes! Turning on Gmail Multiple inboxes in the settings, and then under labs is extremely useful, if collecting email from another address is your goal. But it’s using a filter to assign the To:[Email Address] to a label and archive it, by-passing the inbox.

If you setup  Gmail to include both your inbox and your Label in the view, the effect is a 2 mailbox feel, you still don’t have the ability to manage 2 Gmail email accounts under the same page, but you can still manage the email. You will need to remember that you probably should tag the subject as "on-behalf of" when responding to the emails in the new label view, as the email will be sent out from the current e-mail box.

So yes, Gmail Multiple Mailboxes is useful, just not what I’m looking for just yet.

The Instuctions for setting up your account to turn on Multiple Inboxes: Official Gmail Blog: Tip: Manage several email accounts with Multiple Inboxes, is missing the last step, after placing the TO address, the next step, set it to archive(skip the inbox) and also click the assign to Label checkbox and select a label to place the archive into.

                

Google is working hard to keep your iPhone sync'd!

From the official Google GMAIL blog.

It looks like Google is working hard to make the iPhone more business friendly, well more small business friendly. Large corporations still side in the RIM camp when it comes down to business functionality, but for small business that use, Gmail as their way of communicating and keeping contact's organized. Gmail now has mobile sync which allows you to sync you iPhone with your Gmail contacts. Now lets point out that Google Sync beta is not just for the iPhone, it's just the spin the Gmail blog puts on it, hoping to attract iPhone users with limited contact organization with their phones.

It's also noted that user should back up contacts already on the iphone, as it's doesn't do a merge operation, its a complete refresh of the contacts.

This is the notes for the GMAIL post:

• iPhone users: Google Sync will remove all existing contacts and calendar events from your phone, so make sure to back up (PC instructions, Mac instructions) your data before you set it up.
• Remove contacts that you don't want to sync to your phone. From the "My Contacts" section of the contact manager, select the contact you want to remove, click "Groups" and then "Remove from My Contacts."
• Merge duplicates so friend@theirgmailaddress.com and samefriend@theirworkaddress.com both belong to the same contact. To do so, select both contacts, and click "Merge these 2 contacts." When you merge contacts, your address auto-complete won't work as well as before. We're working on a fix for this, but until that's out you might notice addresses showing up in a suboptimal order in auto-complete, e.g. your friend's work address coming up first when you're used to emailing their Gmail address.

Maybe someday soon, the iPhone will be able to compete one on one with the Blackberries in the corporate market place.




Official Gmail Blog: Sync your contacts and calendar with your phone

                

Google is calling all G1 Developers to it's table

Google, by way of Reuters, is reported to be calling all developers to the table next week, and allowing them the ability to publish applications in its store for the G1 and it's Android phones.

Last week Microsoft announced its foray into the highly dominated smart phone market. Each company hopes to gain some market share away from the iPhone and Apple, by increasing the product offerings in the way of applications through their online stores.

Non Coco developers should be excited about the ability to publish java developed application for the G1. The iPhone development is limited to the Mac OS-X and develop using the Coco language, where the android sdk, is Java based libraries. With the recent success of independent developers stricking gold on iTunes. Some are probably hoping to duplicate some success with Google and Android.

                

iPhone vs Google Android in a Multi Touch - Sans Comic..

Apple has a law suit against Palm for the Pre, Google complied with no multi-touch on the G1, and that about wraps that up! Oh, if you want to digg a little deeper into the topic. Source has a decent write up!

                

Google Maps Mobile - new version just doesn't start on Blackberry Curve

Mobile Google Maps

We have noticed that the new version of Google Maps does not start, it dies directly after the splash screen. Comment if you have it working or if you are having the same issue. We have tested this on the Blackberry Curve and have confirmed this issue. It may be fine on other smart phones and Blackberry models.

The new version includes Google Latitude, you can now find out where your friends are when starting up mobile Google maps. This feature yet cool, has the GPS running to track your movements, which is a huge drain on battery life.

To try out Google Maps Mobile use this page to send the installation link to your phone.

                

Everyone luvs Gmail - Get your Gmail stickers to prove your love!

Now, we all love stickers, and for the cost of a postie! You can get some custom stickies from the gmail team..it's pretty simple. Send a self addressed stamped envy to:

Send me some Gmail stickers already
P.O. Box 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420

Your envelope needs to be post marked before Vday! Feb 14th 2009, to get your sticker pack mailed back to you!..

Official Gmail Blog: Get your Gmail stickers

                

V8 Gives Chrome a proper filename in Drag n Drop OP.

Chrome is slowly starting to take shape! I use the browser more and more, and it's a toss up between FireFox and Chrome these days, it really depends on what saved links I have and what browser they are in. The feature of dragging out components, and being able to split browser session is fantastic, when you looking to do a side by side.

Now the best fix in this release, is that when you drag an image off of Chrome, it now saves the file with a proper file name. Collecting public domain images is now a snap. A drag and drop operation.

Find out more about the Version 8 update at the Offical Chrome Blog.

Google Chrome Releases: Dev Update: Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and a V8 Update

                

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Multiple Inboxes

From the Official Gmail Blog: Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Multiple Inboxes

The idea of tagging is a great way to organize your incoming mail, now you can multi-view the tag folders along side your inbox, creating a multi incoming display. Ok, it's sorta useful. When will the bring in the ability for true Multiple inboxes, the ability to multi-view separate gmail accounts that you manage. Now that would be tre useful.

                

The Internet will harm your Computer, Google Opinion

Many things are not news, but a simple mistake, by a tool used by many, becomes mainstream news worthy. Early morning, Jan 31. for about an hour, every site on the internet was going to harm your computer. A human error, a simple typo was to blame, according to the Googleblog.  

 "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We maintain a list of such sites through both manual and automated methods. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to come up with criteria for maintaining this list, and to provide simple processes for webmasters to remove their site from the list. 

Read the blog post here

 It's a simple mistake, The list that was suppose to list out, sites on the "Harmful List", was basically added to include everyone.  

I guess the real question here, is why does Google leave these sites in it's index, if they are known to be harmful.  Why is it you can de-index adult content, but you can't ask Google to remove know Malware and Spyware laden sites for your search.  

Maybe it's to avoid de-indexing sites that have been tagged to contain some sort of harmful content, because of their association through backlinks and such. 

Oh, well.. It's really not news.. the Internet didn't come crawling to a halt,  but it would of been funnier if every search had sent you over to the Yahoo search engine instead. 

                

Google Chrome v 0.4.154.33 fixes Hotmail woes?

SADLY IT DOESN'T WORK FOR ME!
Does it work for anyone?
After you update the ShortCut, the hotmail live.com javascript fails to run and a message can't be opened and the menu doesn't accept clicks.
Take out the browser declaration and the javascript runs but the message box is still disabled.
One other thing about this posting on ChromePlugins that reeks of a HOAX. The current Google is up to date message is version 1.0.154.36. so is 0.4.154.33 a type O!


When software is Beta, it's usually buggy! This one drove the Hotmail masses mad, if they tried to early adopt. The Hotmail Vs Chrome saga may have come to an end, as some sources. ie. ChromePlugins and Google Chrome Releases are reporting the glitch as fixed in an upcoming Dev Release.






Complete List of Changes in 0.4.154.33 reported by ChromePlugins

r6148 - This allows the Google desktop Links to be lauched in Google Chrome as the default web browser.

r6421 - It fixes the crash many users were getting while trying to open the Chrome Options Dialog box or any other sub-menu under Windows XP 65-bit.

r6464 - This changes the accelerator keys for the Javascript Debugger from ALT+VK_OEM_3 to Ctrl+Shift+L and for the Javascript Console to Ctrl+Shift+J. This was done in order to support a standard keyboard settings in all languages.

r6467 - Fixes the issue with displaying the unicode characters in some fonts such as the plane-1 characters which were not being displayed correctly earlier.

r6482 - It fixes the issue while composing mails and switching between folders in Hotmail. Since Hotmail still does not quite properly recognise Chrome, so to use the site with minimum bugs with hotmail you have to add the following code to the Google Chrome Shortcut you use to launch Google Chrome.
--user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US) AppleWebKit/525.19 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1 Safari/525.19"
Steps:
Right Click on the Google Chrome Shortcut
Click on Properties
Copy-Paste the above code at the end of the Target File and click OK.

r6492 - Fixes the untranslated “Text zoom” Menu while switching the Chrome Language to any of the localised language

                

After a few days working with Chrome, hits and misses.

Four days of Chrome. Needs a little polish, but has potential.


Googles Chrome is beta, and beta means (unfinished), but after a few days of using Chrome, it wanted to shine. And at times it did.

• Reporting sites that heavily used java to display, where screaming fast compared to IE7 and FireFox.


• I just loved the fact that i could uncouple the tabs from one Chrome application process to a new process and then reintegrate the two. Just drag the tab off into a clear desktop area, it's that simple.


• Incognito is a great idea, Great for Banking sites and places you want to make sure your internet tracks don't get left hanging around.


• The Super Omnibar (Address and Search combined) Made moving around my address navigating simple and easy to use, with my bookmarks showing stars as I typed away. What it does is language match what your typing. Try two words or more for searches as they pattern match googles keywords with higher success than singles. Sites match as you type the domain names.

• Easy access to clearing browsing data, just under the tool wrench is handy


• I actually find the thumbnails really handy, and with them showing on any new tab creation, it was super fast to load up all my sites.


• Application shortcuts on the desktop are great for applications i want to make sure I've closed after use. Also they start in it's own process.


• The downloading engine, different as it is was a little more responsive

Now I don't like a couple of things,

• The fact that any site that has cert issues, screams the red wall of google warning.


• Hotmail makes me click the continue using unsupported browser link


• Saving password are open to anyone walking by an unlocked computer within a few clicks and the don't submit the form on use in some cases that all worked great with my SSO integrated with IE.


• For all the bloggers out there, drag scrolling isn't working. When you try to scroll in a text box by draging to the bottom of the window and have the rich edit control scroll, well it doesn't.
• Rendering isn't 100% as the example is from this site, the two link lists (blogger widgets) have no style float attribute but are acting like they do.

Overall this has potential, it's a pretty great first version release, with some cool new ideas, different takes on older ones, and polishing others. Now fit in some way to integrate some Firefox tools than it's going to rock the browser world.

                

Google's Chrome vs Hotmail - Fails Browser Supported

 As with any new browser, Microsoft spits out it's not supported message. When navigating to the Hotmail live page using Chrome you recieve the upgrade your web browser message, with the top three players being supported shown. You can continue on using the link provided underneath the other browsers and everything works as expected over in Microsoft Live land. Maybe the folks at Google should send a few happy smiles MS's way and get rid of that evil "your not worthy message". 

                

It's available now - Chrome out in Beta Style.

Get the new Beta Google Chrome browser. Download Site

Our first response to the NEW browser on the block!

• Okay so you decide to give it a try. Well I haven't decided if it's better or worse than IE 7 or FireFox.. but what I like is that it pulled my IE favs. Wish it asked me if I wanted to pull my Firefox ones.
• The rendering isn't as fast as I'd of hoped. Firefox does a better job on this front.
• Flash support seems to be seamless with the current install.
• Passwords saved from IE will import into the Google password list.
• One box for the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages is pretty.
• Thumbnails of your top sites shows up when you open a new tab
• Shortcuts for your apps to get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

Here is the info from inside Chrome about Incognito:

You've gone incognito. Pages you view in this window won't appear in your browser history or search history, and they won't leave other traces, like cookies, on your computer after you close the incognito window. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will be preserved, however. Going incognito doesn't affect the behavior of other people, servers, or software. Be wary of:
Websites that collect or share information about you
Internet service providers or employers that track the pages you visit
Malicious software that tracks your keystrokes in exchange for free smileys
Surveillance by secret agents
People standing behind you

Learn more about incognito browsing.

                

Google goes Chrome! In comic style

Faster! Dettached, V8 Java Open Source, Incognito and available tommorrow, Google has announced the Google Chrome Beta project in Comic fashion. To check out the features in comic book style, go here.

What is the Chrome Browser Project, well another browser. Will it take any sort of browser market share. Yet to be seen. The coolest feature is the Most Visited thumbnail, Google homepage. Moving the tabs above the address bar, ooohhh who thunk that one up.. must of been a weeks worth of coding!!

                

Iphone oh! Iphone be my Andriod!

So the iPhone may need to hurry up on its SDK release. Google has just shown off Google Andriod Open Source. It’s promising to provide an open SDK for phone software development. This is exactly what iPhone developers have been chomping at the bit for over a year.

When the development community enquired and pleaded, Apple (AAPL) responded with Safari based development, screams of this isn’t good enough have been heard and it looks like we are getting closer to an actual SDK.
Now with development already started in the Android camp with phones coming, maybe in Q3/Q4 2008. What killer application will they have! Will the iPhone developers be ready in time, seeing they haven’t got their hands on the SDK?

Looks like a price drop is coming to sell more iPhones soon too! The more people on board isn’t it suppose to be easier to sink the ship!

                

What does Microsoft really want with Yahoo!

Why Does Microsoft want Yahoo!

It's a valid question? Maybe the only thing they want from Yahoo! Is the advertising software? Maybe to integrate the yahoo search algorithms.

If you look at what Microsoft does better than Yahoo, and again the other way. What does this leave?

Maybe it's to dismantle portions of yahoo that Microsoft just doesn't want out there or to transform Yahoo Shopping into a Microsoft shop of the world.

Yahoo widgets would probably stay around, seeing how the user base is Windows XP and Mac users.

Maybe they want the Domain Hosting to up-sell MySpace users with thier own domain names!

Could it be that Yahoo chat is cutting into MSN Messenger… don't think so...

Overall - What do they want! They want what makes money! It's the Yahoo Search Solutions and advertising pieces that Microsoft hasn't figured out how to do very well. What they do know how to do is integrate products into their own software. This is really about Microsoft wanting to take on Google for market share.

Only time will tell. But Google is certainly going to make this as hard as possible for Microsoft to do.

Maybe someone at Microsoft is looking for a date in the Yahoo Personals!