Oh yeah, the new version of Firefox is upon us.
Firefox 19 for Windows, Mac & Linux was released yesterday with some bug fixes and major change being an in-built PDF viewer. We’ve been using third party (read Adobe) add-ons until now to view PDF files within the browser itself, now no need for those. PDF files will open within the browser itself, a la Chrome.
See the full release notes & changes here and download the latest version by clicking on the banner below.
It feels just like yesterday that Mozilla released the major-est version of their Firefox browser – Firefox 4, with various enhancements. Both within & without, especially in the GUI/look-and-feel department. I’ve never liked the tabs-on-top feature and the disappearing status bar either so I’d tweaked it to look as similar to 3.6 as possible. Well, except the orange menu button – looks nice.
And now hot on the heels, Firefox 5 is upon us. Mozilla had earlier announced that they were ditching the old numbering system and instead focusing on rapid releases and hence we don’t see many 4.x versions. After having been in beta for a couple of weeks, Firefox 5 is available for public download via your browser’s built-in update or from getfirefox.com
And I thought Chrome’s versions were too quick for my liking*!
P.S: * coz I’m a tester and compatibility testing with so many versions is a PITA 
After an initial dislike, I started using Google Chrome again on my notebook, but to my chagrin found that it was an even bigger memory hog than the trusty ol’ Firefox! Whilst with 3 of my oft-used sites open in Firefox it was at 96k of memory, Chrome with just the one tab open had 8 different chrome.exe processes in the task manager, with a combined memory footprint of 118k
Now I know Chrome creates a separate process for each tab but with only 1 tab, why 8 processes? I started killing the processes, starting with the least memory usage first and look what I noticed:
Each Chrome Extension creates its own process! And each Chrome Plugin creates its own process! What the…
I don’t know if the multi-process architecture is the inherent “good stuff” about Chrome but yes, that does help in keeping the browser running even though a related extension or plugin or tab has crashed. But that comes at what price? What if it were an older PC with just the 512 MB of RAM and a not-so-fast processor? Chrome would just C(h)rawl!
[Update]
Found this page at Chromium.org that says:
Chromium extensions will follow a multi-process architecture to share the same kind of stability and security that regular web pages have in Chromium. All of an extension’s code runs in a single process, separate from the browser
Good idea but dunno how useful it’ll be with older and slower pc’s.
I normally don’t splurge on electronic gadgets. The HP Notebook and Sony Ericsson Cellphone were my only gadget-buys in more than five years. But seeing as Mr. EB was coming back from the Queen’s Land after a very long and fruitful stay, I thought to myself: “Ok. So the Pound Sterling is weakening each day. Let me get something via him and then pay back the amount when the Pound is at its lowest 
”
Hence, got hold of him to get back two iPods (a 8GB one for moiself and another 32 GB waala for moi bro). Common sense dictated that an iPhone was a waste of money with all the jailbreaking involved and whatnot! And even though I listen to music on my notebook/phone usually, a touch device on which some gaming also can be done was appealing. 
What sweetened the deal a bit more was that I got two iPod dockable speakers with inbuilt FM Radio worth £50 for Free 
. All of this for a little more than £350. Naaaice…
Do you own a HP Pavilion Notebook with an Integrated Webcam? The one that’s built into the top of the lid? If you own one such notebook, has its webcam ever stopped working allovasudden? You probably did some wee bit of Windows Update or Microsoft Update only to realize later that your webcam is no longer responding…its blue light is no longer glowing and you are unable to use it from within any applications such as Quick Play or Instant Messengers.
If yes, you’re in the same boat as me. At least I was in the same boat until today. The Webcam had gone kaput and no longer was recognized from within the messengers I used. A wee bit of troubleshooting (and some insightful advise from Mr. MK of HP Support) later, I nailed down the culprit.
What happened was that during a routine update, the driver was replaced by a newer one which somehow caused the device to get slotted as an USB Serial Bus device rather than a webcam. Uninstalling the driver and re-installing the correct one resolved the problem and voila! my friends can now see me as I chat with them (not that its any added incentive!). The detailed troubleshooting procedure’s outlined after the jump…
Persona: A persona is the mask or appearance one presents to the world. Importantly, the persona, used in this sense, is not a pose or some other intentional misrepresentation of the self to others. Rather, it is the self as self-construed, and may change according to situation and context.
In case you’re wondering what’s all that psychological mumbo jumbo was about, let me introduce you to the Personas Project from MIT. Built by Aaron Zinman, the project, in its online avatar, is a website that takes your name as an input and scours the internet for its traces. Out of the sites and pages that it finds, it picks the keywords best describing them and presents in a ‘weighted image’ – which is your (name’s) persona on the web!
It actually helps if your name is a unique one and you’ve used the same name across different places on the internet. If like me, you’re in the habit of using different monikers at different sites, your profile will be a stunted one! Some of my er…um…aliases threw up rather confusing results:
Just noticed a feature on my WordPress.com blog that I’m not sure if it has been there before or not! The feature in question is the WordPress In-built URL Shortener…WP.ME
And no, I’m not talking about the URL shortening of the kind that WP does with blog surfer – the one where post links are given as http://ychittaranjan.wordpress.com/?p=2155, the number after p usually the Post Id.
The one I noticed was built into the edit post page wherein one can edit the permalink of an older post. There is a new button there that will generate a new shortlink for your post – one in the form of http://wp.me/p4bL-yL
Nifty, no? Here’s how you can do it too…
Q: How do you (almost) ruin a movie franchise whose need of the hour was to break away from the hangover of the Star Actor who has been its face for the past three instalments?
A: You include a bad CGI version of the actor in one of the fight sequences! That’s what McG has resorted to, likely as an homage, probably as an after-thought. In case you’re wondering about which movie I’m talking about, its Terminator Salvation.
The fourth instalment in the Terminator series takes us into the future – 2018 – when Skynet has become all-prevalent and the human resistance forces have had to stay hidden in small pockets across the world as the bots and machines take over the planet.
John Connor (Christian Bale) is waging two battles – one with the machines and one with his fellow commanders, who choose to ignore him as the ‘leader’ of the resistance and pay no heed to aid him in looking out for someone. Into this mileu comes in Marcus (Sam Worthington), a survivor, a man on a mission…one that he himself isn’t much too sure about. Is he a friend? Is he a Foe? Only time will tell.
The resistance have managed to lay their hands on a potential weapon that will destroy skynet and its upto John Connor to stop the attack until he gets out the human prisoners out safe….and take the help of the mystery-man Marcus. Trust and belief have to be placed in the very hands that might bode the doom for humanity…..and that is a difficult choice that John Connor must make. To ensure the survival of the human race. To ensure the struggle against skynet doesn’t end tamely. To ensure that the sacrifices and actions of Sarah Connor aren’t wasted. To attain…Salvation!
