No need for Microsoft Word, Use Mozilla Prism

No, I wont replace "Techlog" in the title with "Browser log" or "Mozilla log".

Having said that, Have you looked at Mozilla's Prism? It is the window to look at the next generation of applications. It is simply a web browser for one site. And you can have many Prisms pointing at different sites (like in the picture on the right).

Say you want to write a document, you click on Microsoft Word icon and start typing. Or now, you click on the Google Documents icon and start typing. The first action runs a program on your local computer but the second action runs an application on the web. It will be seamless. The two applications have almost the same functionality and look the same.

But why not just use Firefox to run Google Docs?
Simple, for using web applications like Google Docs and Gmail, you don't need all those extra buttons and text fields, like the address bar, status bar, search bar, bookmarks/favorites, file menus, themes and extensions. This way you will have an application that is lighter on system resources and clutter-free.

Best of all, with firefox 3 and/or Google Gears you can access web applications (and save and print your work) online and offline. Therefore, eliminating the need for Microsoft Office (and its clones) completely.

IE8 Follows Web Standards, Firefox Wins

Developers of Microsoft Internet Explorer just posted that they "decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way". First thing came to my mind is, that's a good thing for Firefox (and all alternative web browsers). How is one browser following web standards is good for its competitors? It will force web developers to follow such standards, thus increasing the number of sites/apps who will run fine under all browsers and ease the switch of novice web surfers away from Internet Explorer.

Why leave IE? For many reasons. I will talk about that in a different post.

Currently, many website developers (especially those developing "web-based solutions" to companies) only test their creations with IE version 6. It makes sense to them because they don't have to run Firefox, IE, Opera, and Konqueror and test their websites on them every time they make changes to the code. Also, since IE only works in Windows OS, developers write less code for OS interactions and file reads/writes.

These kinds of IE-specific "Web Applications" appear in so many popular websites, Due to the dominance of IE. Roughly, 80% of all web surfers use IE and 15% use Firefox. In other words, around 15% of visitors use standards-compliant browsers and will not be able to use this web application. The remaining 80% are using the web application (and clicking on adds). Is it worth it to spend the money to change the website? The answer I believe is "not yet."

This is about to change. IE8 will be standards-compliant by default and will have a button to optionally render websites in IE6 engine. What this means is as soon as IE8 shows up in Windows Update, most of those 80% will convert to a standards-compliant browser and thus will not be able to use the same old web app, forcing website to join in on the standards and finally fix their sites for everyone, including Firefox users.

Update:
I found an amazing (and very long) article about standards. Check it out here.

Why I will never buy an Xbox

I’ve read Opening the Xbox, a book which explains in details how the Xbox evolved from being an idea to the day it launched. The author, Dean Takahashi, reveals that originally Microsoft’s CEO Bill Gates wanted a complete “living room computing” solution. He envisioned that the Xbox user could, with one push of a button, switch from playing games to editing documents and spreadsheets right on the Xbox (no doubt using Microsoft Office). I learned a great deal about the economics of creating a console. However, the part that interested me most was the fact that deep inside, Xbox is a desktop PC with barebones Windows operating system and DirectX.

But to be fair, all consoles are some sort of a computer with an operating system. They all have processors, RAM, motherboards, optical disk drives, and hard disks. Why do I criticize just the Xbox for being a PC with Windows?

One of the major features of the Xbox, says Takahashi, is that game developers don’t need new tools to develop games. They can use the tools and software they already use to make Windows games. Since both Windows and Xbox use DirectX, they use the same instructions and game code. This means game developers will have a small learning curve to develop for the consol. But more importantly, they can port their PC games to Xbox (and vice versa) with ease. Surely this is much easier than porting games to Playstation 3. For me, this “feature” is the reason I stayed away from Xbox and Xbox360.

What this means is that most Xbox titles will eventually show up on PCs. This happened with almost all “exclusive” Xbox titles like Halo and Gears of War. It is a great way for game companies to make more money on big-name titles after they run their course on the Xbox. Just make the proper modifications to the game and port it to the PC and sell more titles.

I can buy an Xbox360 and restrain myself to its limited processor and hardware. Or I can buy a decent PC with a much better processor and graphics with the same price as the Xbox and play all Xbox games on it, when they are ported. All that while enjoying extra benefits that the PC offers like word processing and other software. You see, Bill Gates had the right idea but failed to follow up on it. That is why I will never buy an Xbox.

Macworld Keynote

Steve Jobs introduces the Macbook Air. This is the link to the full length video of macworld 2008 keynotes:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/keynote/

Google's Android Surfaces

An interesting article in USA Today talks about the demo of the first Android phone. Good read for smartphone enthusiasts.

Bill Gates CES Keynote

Nothing new, downloadable shows and sales figures. But good to see Gates is still walking on his own.
As promised this is Bill Gates full length keynote presentation.

• 750K Stream
• 300K Stream
• 100K Stream

Amazing Techmeme Video

I check Techmeme more than I check my email, about 6 times a day. It is a great source for fresh tech news and tech blog rants. You really know whats going on on the technology scene when you look at techmeme. Even if you miss a day or two, you can always go back and see the front page as it was that day, just type the time (for example January 1st 2007 1:00 PM).

I found this video showing how the front page changes during 50 hours. Its amazing! I wish I created this website.

Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs: Round 2

It was exactly one year ago that I talked about the public speaking skills of the two most influential figures in the computer industry, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. It is time once again to keep a close eye on the technology news because of the eminent arrival of Consumer Electronics Show with Gates to present the Keynote, and Macworld where Jobs will take the center stage.

I will be watching both keynotes and will try to embed both videos here.

Earth to Mozilla!!

I was checking out my visitors trends (thanks to Google Analytics) and noticed I had a visit from someone at mountainview.mozilla.com!! I'm sure they came to read my Firefox feedback/rants, including the Full Page Zoom post below.

Whoever you are, FIX THE ZOOM :)

Firefox 3 Full Page Zoom: Good Idea Bad Excution

I was so excited about the full page zoom feature in Firefox 3. Even more excited about it than the new bookmarks. However, it turned out to be not what I expected. You see, I have a laptop with Ubuntu in the living room for casual browsing. The native screen resolution is 1920x1200 which makes the websites we visit very tiny and unreadable, although very crisp.

To fix the problem, i tried to increase the font size in Firefox but that broke the design of almost all websites, rendering them unreadable and defeating the purpose to increase the font size in the first place. I also tried to reduce the resolution but the buttons and menus became huge and the Firefox interface took almost a third of the screen. And since we're no longer working in the native resolution of the screen, everything looks a little fuzzy. So I took the best of both solutions; increase the font slightly and decrease the resolution slightly. Now most websites are readable with very small changes in layout due to font size. Life is good. Its about to get better.

Enter Full Page Zoom. When I first heard about it I thought this will solve the problem. It basically increases the size of the whole page, not just the font. It lets you zoom in without breaking the layout of the page. Now I can switch back to full resolution and zoom in to make the site bigger to accompany my large resolution and keep everything crisp and clear and readable. And it works. But..

With this new feature, they (Firefox developers) introduced a new "feature." They call it site-specific preferences. Which basically means that you set your preferences for each site separately. This sounds like an okay feature but it wrecks my use of full page zoom. You see, every time I zoom in to one page and read it then visit a different site, the full page zoom returns to the default zoom and renders everything smaller. Then I have to zoom in again to read the next page and so on.

There is no way to configure any of these two features and no way to disable site-specific preferences. Maybe someone will write an extension? Maybe I will do it? Who knows, Always Zoom extension! (you read it here first). I hope this issue will be addressed before launch.

Update:
My post in Mozilla forums about this subject sparked a good discussion which eventually turned to two guys fighting about a totally different subject.

Microsoft Office for Linux?

Gizmodo has a preview for Microsoft Office for Mac. Now since it is clear Office is still in development for operating systems other than windows, why not port the software to Linux as well? I dont see myself using it in my Linux box (I use Google Docs and Open Office) but it may help convert some people over to Linux.

"Techy Title Here"

My good friend MBH started what I call a "too technical blog." He generally talks about Unix/Linux. Give him a visit: mbhtech.blogspot.com.

We Mourn the Death of Netscape

Netscape browser's development and support will stop on February 1st 2008. This will mark the end of the first "commercial" browser. I remember the first day I used the web was with Netscape. Internet Explorer was unheard of, and surely Firefox was not even an idea.

To the right is the old splash screen of Netscape 2. Seeing this picture reminds me of how slow my computer was at the time. It brings back lots of memories.

Read more about the death of Netscape Navigator.

Comments on Firefox 3 Beta 1

Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 1 is out and available to download. And guess what? I like it.


Good:

• Revamped bookmarks: with tags and one-click bookmarking using a Google-style star near the address bar. Double click the star to add tags to the new bookmark and edit title and location.
• Full-page zoom: Great for enlarging websites and read them comfortably without messing the layout. Try resizing the BBC News site in IE or FF2 and see the mess you're making, full-page zoom fixes that. Great for wide screens too, and my mom's laptop!!
• No more saving wrong passwords. They are saved after successfull login.
  

Bad (Note that it is still in beta and these will probably be fixed before RC1):

• HUGE memory footprint compared to Firefox 2 (and 1.5), even with only 2 tabs open. While writing this post my memory usage reached 770MB!!
  
• Revamped download manager looks nicer but the download speed text keeps changing places depending on the number of minutes remaining. you will know what I'm talking about when you try it.
  
• Delayed 2 months (and no promise on release date).

Don't download FF3 yet. This release is for developers and testers only. Keep using FF2.

Top 5 Requests for Google Reader

1. Collapsible Header
   

   Just like when pressing u collapses the left-hand links. Why can't we press h, for example, to collapse the space-wasting headers and give us more reading room? We don't need to stare all the time at Google Reader's logo, my email address, settings, help, and expanded/list views.
   

2. More than 2000 items for offline Reader
   

   You knew this was coming. You do not actually read all items in all the feeds you're subscribed to. I usually scan my feeds for interesting items to read so I skip a lot of items. Therefore, having 2000 items limit is somehow low and forces me to use some services like Yahoo Pipes to filter my feeds. However, automatic filtering is not a good idea because it may filter out things that you might find interesting.
   

3. Pre-fetch in offline Reader
   

   There is a noticeable delay when you try to open the next item in Google Reader offline mode. Prefetching next unopened item (or next five items even) and storing it in cache would totally eliminate this problem. And add an option in the settings page for prefetching while you're at it.
   

4. Podcasts in offline Reader
   

   When downloading the 2000 items to switch Reader offline, add a parallel progress bar to download enclosed mp3 files found in the downloaded items. This parallel bar can be canceled by the user and with a check box for "never download mp3 files again." Google's flash mp3 player can be configured to read from the locally stored mp3 file. This can be extended to video podcasts as well. Options to enable offline podcasts can be added to the settings page.
   

5. Enough with this Beta talk
   

   Google redefined "Beta" recently. So many Google services are so popular and stable yet they are marked as beta. I move to remove beta from Google Reader. It's perfectly stable and ready for prime time, folks, take my word for it!