New Firefox makes browser war a fair fight

If you regularly read this space, you'll notice how the Google Chrome Web browser kind of grew on me, and after my initial reservations I've come to love it. Something about its speed.

But now Firefox, with its new 3.6 version, has seen enough improvements to almost make it a fair fight.

Some of the benchmark tests comparing the two intrigued me. When you figure in that impossible stability+speed combination, reviewers are calling them almost neck and neck.

Now, we don't do that benchmark stuff around here. I don't have time to mess with all that, and I'd rather put a piece of software through its paces. I'd rather max it out, try to break it, and take note of my findings. I'm not smart enough or geeky enough to plug the whole thing to an oscilloscope or whatever it is those propellerheads do.

So, take any speed or stability tests I run with a grain of salt -- or maybe even the whole shaker. Whatever test results I get depend on what mood I'm in at the time, and what I'm trying to do with the software. But I will try to max it out.

I'm one of those computer users who runs underpowered equipment (scary to think my netbook is the most muscular computer I have) and overclocks it like crazy. And to do the things I want to do, I go for lightweight, faster programs when I can. Even my usual graphical interface -- Fluxbox -- is really little more than a plain background, taskbar, and menus that I write myself from text files. That's why I was so eager to get my Chrome on, because of its simple and fast interface.

Being the experimenter that I am, after reading some of the reports I had to download Firefox 3.6. I've always liked the 'fox, used it even in its beta days when it was called Firebird (or was it Phoenix?), and kept going back to it after trying other browsers. But I knew 3.6 would really have to show me something to dislodge Chrome from the front line.

But I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm not sure what the developer did, but it's a whole lot quicker than Firefox used to be. It's not quite in the Chrome league, but this new version might be as fast as Opera.

From what I've noticed, Web pages don't seem to get lost in that nether world that's probably populated by everyone's stray socks.

Lifehacker recently ran some tests of some of the favorite browsers available, with several versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Opera, and Safari. Sorry, Internet Explorer wasn't in these tests, which takes away a lot of comic relief. That would have been like bringing a duck to a cockfight.

Here's the stuff according to Lifehacker, with my comments:

• Boot-up and warm loading; Winner: Opera - No surprises; Opera always was a fast loader.

• Tab Loading; Winner: Chrome Stable - I use version 4.0.249.30 for Linux, which is in beta but built from the stable version. And there's no dispute there; it's the fastest "name" browser I've seen in a while.

• JavaScript; Winner: Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha.

• DOM/CSS; Winner: Chrome Developmental version.

• Memory use, no extensions; Winner: Firefox 3.6 - This is a surprise, and certainly worth my attention.

• Memory use with extensions; Winner: Firefox 3.6 - An even bigger surprise here. Firefox has always been fairly quick until I start loading in my extensions. Then my browsing experience was like watching paint dry. If this test holds up in real life, then Firefox just made up for a lot of lost ground in the browser battle.

• Overall winners, in order: Google Chrome Developmental, Google Chrome Stable, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 3.5.4: Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha, Opera 10.01, Safari 4.0.4.

Will this new Firefox become my prime browser?

It's hard to say. I've always liked how you could add extensions to Firefox, but Chrome is starting to head in that modular direction too. And I like the independent tabs in Chrome; if one Web page gets stuck you only need to close that tab rather than shut down the whole browser. In Chrome I haven't run into the memory problems I used to encounter with Firefox. There's a lot to be said for both browsers.

Besides, it's still too early in my test flight for me to render a decision. I haven't broken Firefox yet. Or Chrome. Ask me then.

But if speed and memory use are your needs, it looks like this may finally be a fair fight.

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Got my Chrome on -- finally!

After a whole bunch of testing, tweaking, and head-banging, Google Chrome is now working on my Linux box.

At issue was an nss file; I'm not real sure what it does, but it makes Chrome work. That's all I need to know.

I couldn't find it on any of my Vector Linux repositories, so I had to do some serious Web searching to dig it up. But it's there, on a web site called slackfind.net -- of course, it is now bookmarked in my system.

Here's the file:

Keep in mind, this is for a Slackware version of Linux, specifically Vector Linux, which is the one I use. It's in .tgz format, for me a breeze to install.

And Chrome is as fast as I knew it would be.

Firefox? What's Firefox?

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Chrome becomes headache on Linux box

I'll admit it. I had my early misgivings about the Google Chrome browser when it was first coming out. Like, what's Google doing in the software business?

But after using Chrome a few times on Windows systems, it sort of grew on me. It's one fast browser, maybe even faster than Opera. It's less likely to blow up in memory like Firefox. I have a Portable Apps version that I use on borrowed Windows machines, though it doesn't seem to save my bookmarks.

On my Linux box, I'm always experimenting with browsers. I have Firefox, Seamonkey (which is built off the old Mozilla code), Dillo, Lynx, and Opera available to browse the Web, and I use them all. For the past few months Opera has been my go-to, and even that feels poky next to Chrome.

So I put myself on the Chrome mailing list, waiting for the Linux version to come out. A few weeks ago, the first version for MacIntosh and Linux was released, with all the warts.

Now, understand, this version is in beta. Which means it may or may not work. That's what happens when you go for such bleeding-edge software. You're volunteering your services as a crash-test dummy.

So far, only binaries of Chrome seem to be available in Linux; I haven't seen any source-code bundles just yet. I use Vector Linux, which runs with .tlz and .tgz binary packages, but I like to compile my programs from source. Best I was able to do was to download the .rpm binary (which Red Hat and Fedora use), and convert it over to .tgz. Here's what I did, from the root shell:

root:# cd /home/eric
root:# rpm2tgz google-chrome-beta_current_i386.rpm

From there, I was able to install it directly into my system. I was ready to go. I had my seatbelt buckled and my Tony Stewart racing gear on, 'cause this was going to be one fast browser.

A problem, though. I could only go so far; the sandbox (a security tool) wasn't configured right. My command shell told me what to do, so after a few days of deliberation I went ahead with the fix. Here's how, again from a root shell:

root:# su /opt/google/chrome
root:# chown root chrome-sandbox
root:# chmod 4755 chrome-sandbox

Then fired Chrome up from the command shell -- success, for a minute.

As it stands now, I can work Chrome all day, as long as I don't use it to go online. That's when it quits.

Seriously. Here's what I get in the command shell:

eric:$ google-chrome
[7241:7253:703254262:ERROR:/usr/local/google/home/chrome-eng/b/slave/chrome-official-linux/build/src/base/nss_init.cc(89)] Error initializing NSS with a persistent database (sql:/home/eric/.pki/nssdb): NSS error code -8174 Assertion failure: lock != NULL, at ../../../../pr/src/pthreads/ptsynch.c:205 Aborted

In non-technical language, that means it crapped out. Back to the drawing board.

Might need to download the next version, maybe attack one of the nightly builds. And if anyone has any ideas of their own, I'm willing to try them. But despite my early misgivings I see Chrome in my future, and I'm not talking about a chrome dome here.

I'm gonna keep trying, because I'm stubborn and enjoy fooling with software when it's in beta. Face it. I make a good crash test dummy.

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(You tell me: How about the rest of y'all Linux users? Have you had any better luck than me? Use the comments section below.)

Facebook security issues? It's the ducky's fault

Gee everybody's so friendly on Facebook ... probably too much so.

Two Facebook users, Daisy Felettin and Dinette Stonily, sent out friend requests to 100 Facebookers each, chosen at randon though concentrating on their own age groups. Between the two of them, 95 people decided to become their friends.

Except Daisy and Dinette don't exist. They were created by the IT firm Sophos to show how easy it is to convince Facebook users to reveal personal information to total strangers.

Daisy (using a photo of a rubber duck as her avatar), is known to Facebook users as a 21-year-old woman, while Dinette Stonily presented "herself" a, a 56-year-old with a photo of two cats as her avatar.

Daisy concentrated on younger Facebook users, and came away with 46 new friends. Of these 46, she got full birthdates from 89 percent of them, family/friend data from 46 percent, a town or suburb from 50 percent, a full address from four percent, and a phone number from seven percent.

Older Facebook users, when dealing with Dinette, were also quick to become friends. Of the 100 approached, 41 became friends -- but another eight approached Dinette of their own accord and befriended the cat-loving phantom. And of the 49 new friends, Dinette got full birthdates from 57 percent of them, family/friend data from 31 percent, a town or suburb from 43 percent, a full address from six percent, and a phone number from 23 percent.

Check out their names again. They're based on anagrams for "false identity" and "stolen identity."

Ugh. There are a lot of people who shouldn't be running computers.

At Sophos, they call this experiment the “rubber duck attack.” There's a purpose behind the goofy moniker, as it shows how you can gather someone’s personal info without any technical expertise, simply by working within the social network’s rules.

I can't stand Facebook. I'd rather not waste my time with it. I was ready to shut down my account when some friends -- real friends, as in people I know and like -- started contacting me there. For many of these friends, that's the online way to keep up with one another.

OK. It goes like this. Not everyone who says he wants to be your friend is really your friend. Got it? You wouldn't invite some random person into your living room just because he says he wants to "friend" you, as they say in Facebook. But then y'all already knew that.

Here's something revealing: The 46 people befriended by Daisy have an average of 220 Facebook friends, while Dinette's 49 new pals have an average of 932 Facebook friends.

I'm tired of belaboring this point: Nobody has that many friends. 

Sophos (the duck people) offer their own social-networking security tips:

• Don't blindly accept friends. Treat a friend as the dictionary does, namely "someone whom you know, like and trust." A friend is not merely a button you click on. You don't need, and can't realistically claim to have, 932 true friends.
• Learn the privacy system of any social networking site you join. Use restrictive settings by default. You can open up to true friends later. Don't give away too much too soon. 
  
• Assume that everything you reveal on a social networking site will be visible on the internet for ever. Once it has been searched, and indexed, and cached, it may later turn up on-line no matter what steps you take to delete it.
  

And watch out for potential friends bearing rubber ducks.

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After rough start, Firefox marks fifth birthday

I never would have expected this. Firefox is five years old.

Despite its promise from the jump, Firefox spent its beta period without any real identity. Literally.

At first no one was really sure what to call it. For a while it was known as Phoenix, then Firebird. I believe the developers had to come up with a fast name change because there's another piece of software called Firebird, and branding is a big thing in the computer world.

With such an inauspicious beginning, it's amazing to see that the product survived, let alone developed a reputation as a stable browser.

To further confuse things, Firefox is open source, meaning you can take the code, tweak it, build something else from it, and rebrand it. This was done with Debian Linux, as the Firefox brand is copyrighted though the source code is not, so that thing that looks and feels like Firefox is called Iceweasel or some such thing. I've also used BonEcho, a rebranded, stripped-down version of Firefox for the ultralight Puppy Linux.

For a while, one of the lesser-known and more tongue-in-cheek Firefox extensions available was called firesomething, which would put a whole different name on the browser every time you run it. The name on it may be SnowSnake this time, and maybe something like BlizzardLizard the next. It was a goofy extension, but brought a chuckle to this user who remembered Firefox's early search for a name.

The browser made it out of beta and released Version 1.0 five years ago this week. Within four days, more than a million people downloaded it. I was one of them.

I was one of the early Firefox adopters. I was running an assembled-from-scratch computer, and already I was sick of Internet Explorer's balkiness and security leaks. I went to the old Mozilla suite, and when that company announced it was throwing its resources into a new, browser-only project, I had to try it out.

The design was a thing of beauty. You were getting a basic browser, and you'd add whatever you feel you needed to it. Now, five years later, the modular design remains. My Firefox has the experimental Google Gears extension, plus the LastPass password keeper. But the biggest extension I have is ScribeFire, which allows me to compose blogs within the browser and post them seamlessly. ScribeFire is big, adds more bloat to the browser, and is sometimes buggy so I'm a bit lukewarm about it. But I use it.

A caveat about Firefox: The more add-ons and extensions you install, the slower it will run. It's like running a car with all the options instead of a model with power nothing and the kind of air conditioner you get when you open all four windows. But even with a lot of chrome on it, Firefox is a good browser, stable, and secure. The developers stay on top of things, and are quicker to solve their bugs than the Microsoft people are at admitting there's a problem with IE. For a while, Firefox had a problem where it would blow up in your memory and consume every CPU cycle you had, but that was solved several updates ago.

Over time, Mozilla dropped its old browser and made Firefox its big Web browsing application. Recently, some fans of the old Mozilla browser took the source code, tweaked a few things, updated the whole thing, and released it as Seamonkey.

Now, Firefox is taking a decent chunk of the browser market. It's the main browser by about 25 percent of Web users, but that's a funny number. Firefox is not routinely installed on computers out of the box, and many users tend to stick with what's already on the box -- like Internet Explorer. Figure it. To use Internet Explorer you unpack the computer, plug it in, and double-click on the big "e" on the screen. You have to go out of your way to get Firefox -- and then install it yourself. But, Firefox now grabs a bigger share than the obsolete IE version 6, which is still a step ahead.

Recently, MozillaZine announced that Firefox was present on a majority -- 50.6 percent -- of computers, based on numbers by the exo.performance.network. So someone, somewhere, is doing an awful lot of downloading.

But while Firefox has seen some real growth lately, the year-old Google Chrome is growing even faster. Roughly four percent of computer users are making Chrome the prime browser, so that one has a way to go, but the growth rate matches the buzz it's generating. I played some with Chrome, but its development has primarily been on the Windows and, more recently, MacIntosh side. Still, I'm pleased by its lightness and speed -- by comparison a fully-loaded Firefox is kludgy -- but Chrome has an unfinished feel to it. I do suspect that, once it is ported to Linux, I may put it on my front line.

Firefox is still my go-to browser, but mostly because it works better with much of the stuff on the Web (particularly the experimental Google Labs widgets). It's probably a little bloated for my taste, though. Much as I tend to shy away from those large, do-everything suites (such as Open Office), I like Seamonkey (the rebuilt and reissued Mozilla browser suite) a bit better. Even with the built-in mail reader and HTML editor, its design is lighter than the browser-only Firefox. I do like Opera for the same reason, though it hasn't caught on in the mainstream computer world at all. Too bad. Opera is the only one that has a chance of outrunning Chrome in a speed test. Both of them are much quicker than Firefox, while IE lags so far behind you'd need searchlights to find it.

But if you want pure speed, Lynx runs circles around all of them, including Google Chrome. But since Lynx is text-only, you might have a problem watching those YouTube videos on it.

Many social-media games turning into scams

I can't get into Facebook. I do have an account, though I use it more to communicate with some of my friends. And I can't see spending a lot of time on it to play the games.

I have some friends who are seriously into the Facebook games and applications. Farmville, Bejeweled, YoVille, and Mafia Wars are real popular among the people I know. I can't be bothered with that stuff myself. I go on Facebook maybe long enough to check my messages, say hello to a few friends, and log off to check my Twitter account.

At first glance the Facebook games seem to be harmless fun. I understand you play many of them in levels; you clear the first level and move up to the bigger and better stuff -- much like the old-school Mario Brothers game or Dungeons & Dragons. So far, so good.

But TechCrunch has been working on a series of articles on the social-media games, and writer Michael Arrington smells a lot more scam than score.

With a lot of these games, there are two ways to hit another level: Earn it by playing well enough to clear the level you're on, or pull a George Steinbrenner and buy a new level. With real money. Your real money.

Already you can see this coming, if you're half perceptive. The game gets you hooked. It's like any other "progressive" type of game, and I can vouch for that. I've spent many hours trying to crack the combination on FreeCiv, an open-source version of Sid Meier's Civilization. Next I know the sun's coming up, my legs are frozen in one position, my left hand is all cramped up from pushing the mouse around, and my butt lost all feeling hours ago. So I can understand that.

But crank in the buy-ins and the special offers, especially if you're frustrated at the %$&#! game and your brain is fuzzed over from a marathon session, then things get real interesting.

On Oct. 31, Arrington wrote this:

... these games try to get people to pay cash for in game currency so they can level up faster and have a better overall experience. Which is fine. But for users who won’t pay cash, a wide variety of "offers" are available where they can get in-game currency in exchange for lead gen-type offers. Most of these offers are bad for consumers because it confusingly gets them to pay far more for in-game currency than if they just paid cash (there are notable exceptions, but the scammy stuff tends to crowd out the legitimate offers). And it’s also bad for legitimate advertisers. The reason why I call this an ecosystem is that it’s a self-reinforcing downward cycle. Users are tricked into these lead gen scams ...

Here's one scam, according to Arrington:

... users are offered in game currency in exchange for filling out an IQ survey. Four simple questions are asked. The answers are irrelevant. When the user gets to the last question they are told their results will be text messaged to them. They are asked to enter in their mobile phone number, and are texted a pin code to enter on the quiz. Once they’ve done that, they’ve just subscribed to a $9.99/month subscription. Tatto Media is the company at the very end of the line on most mobile scams, and they flow it up through Offerpal, SuperRewards and others to the game developers ... nothing in the offer says that the user will be billed $10/month forever for a useless service.

Had enough yet? Here's another:

Video Professor ... users are offered in game currency if they sign up to receive a free learning CD from Video Professor. The user is told they pay nothing except a $10 shipping charge. But the fine print, on a different page from checkout, tells them they are really getting a whole set of CDs and will be billed $189.95 unless they return them. Most users never return them because they don’t know about the extra charge. Woot. Again, sites like Offerpal and SuperRewards flow these offers through to game developers ...

Slashdot, one of my favorite sites for geeky news, says this about the TechCrunch articles:

... the system is rife with scams, and many game developers turn a blind-eye to them, much to the detriment of the players and the legitimate advertisers — not to mention the games that rightly disallow these offers and fall behind in profits. The article asserts that Facebook and MySpace themselves are complicit in this, failing to crack down on the abuses they see because they make so much money from advertising for the most popular games ...

If you play these online games -- or if you're thinking about it -- I highly recommend these three TechCrunch articles, all by Arrington:

Part One - Social Games: How The Big Three Make Millions

Part Two - Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

Part Three - Two Companies That Said No To Social Media Scams

I'm getting awfully tired of doing these pieces on Internet scams. I'd rather do how-tos and reviews any old day. You think these scammers can give me enough of a break to pursue this? C'mon guys ... at least do it for my convenience?

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Phish tales: My Twitter, 1000s of Hotmail accounts hijacked

I'm fairly new at this Twitter thing, and I'm still prone to rookie mistakes. And for a few days, I was paying for one.

I occasionally get worthless tweets from folks about quick-and-dirty ways to build my traffic. Most of them are pure crap, by the way, but while some are harmless crap, others are more nefarious. I came across one -- GET 1000's OF FOLLOWERS, with a link. OK. I could smell the crap all the way from here, but I thought I'd take a look at it to, well, see what was going on. Research purposes, you understand.

I clicked on the link and immediately got the warning that the site was possibly one for phishing. For those who don't know what that is, phishing is when someone is trying to harvest information from you. Valuable information that you wouldn't give out otherwise. Like a password.

As soon as I saw that warning, I clicked on it to basically abort the mission. Supposedly, that was the end of that.

Not so. Soon after that, I noticed I had been making some real strange tweets, or more correctly, some jerkface was sending them out under my name. Every day. There would be some message credited to me, advertising some "service" that gives you thousands of followers. Or something. In social media, followers and friends are the coin of the realm. The more followers you have, the bigger your network and the more valuable your site. I use Twitterfeed to link my writing directly into Twitter, and all of my followers (right now about 40 of them) gain access to my work.

Soon I noticed these posts linking to the phishing site started going out every day, with the link and my name on them. Some idiot hijacked my Twitter account, and I became a spammer.

I tried a few quick damage-control measures. Blocking the original source of the link. Adding a disclaimer to warn followers away from that link. Part of that was saving face -- letting my followers know it wasn't me sending those things. And the spam messages still showed up, every day.

Final analysis: There seems to be a simple fix, a real no-brainer. Change your Twitter password. I did that, and the messages stopped. D'oh!

Meanwhile, those who use Hotmail for email (I'm not sure why you'd want to) are getting phished big time. According to gHacks Technology News:

Microsoft has recently confirmed that thousands of Windows Live Hotmail customer’s credentials were exposed on a third party website. According to Neowin the account information were posted by an anonymous user at the pastebin website. The list that was posted contained over 10.000 account details of accounts starting with the letters A and B which suggests that additional lists might be in the hands of the attackers. Initial investigations suggest that only accounts used to access Windows Live Hotmail were affected (which includes email accounts ending with hotmail.com, msn.com or live.com ... Microsoft determined that the attack was not a breach of internal Microsoft data and believes that the account data was gained by a phishing attack. Phishing attacks are common ways these days to lure users into entering their account data on websites that look like the real deal but are not ...

Again, the gHacks-prescribed fix is a simple one: Change your password. Now.

There are a few before-the-fact and after-the-fact ways to protect yourself here:

Changing your password is the best back-end fix, though it is a pain in the butt. Even more painful now, when you access your accounts through a third-party application or site. For me, this meant changing the passwords on TweetDeck and Twitterfeed. As I write this, I'm pretty sure I haven't checked if my feed on this blog has been fixed yet; probably not. Note to self: Fix.

I haven't really checked it out yet, but there's a program called lastpass that's supposed to make it easy. It was mentioned in the gHacks piece, so I downloaded it and will give it a go. Might have something to write about there; stay tuned.

Also, the other standard self-protection rules apply. Don't click on Twitter links unless you know the source. Pretty much the same rule as opening email attachments. I know I'm screwing myself here, as I get a fair bit of blog traffic through Twitter. But y'all pay attention to what the link is. If the link is attached to a blog post (in my case it's prefaced with a COLUMN or WORKBENCH) it'll be OK. Those attachments will only mess with your mind, not your computer or Twitter account. If the preface is something like GAIN ZILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS, MAKE MILLIONS WHILE SITTING ON YOUR BUTT, or LOSE 20 POUNDS OF DANGEROUS UGLY FAT WITHOUT CUTTING OFF YOUR HEAD, the link is probably real sketchy and you'd do well to ignore it. But you don't need me to tell you that.

This last is going to require some extra vigilance, as so much Twitter traffic involves passing links back and forth. Especially mine. Looking at the last 40 tweets from my network (representing about two hours), 31 have clickable links. Most will refer me to a blog post or a news story. This is probably disproportionately high, as many Twitter users merely use the account to keep track of some friends. Mine actually doubles as a news feed, so I'm going to have a higher percentage of links.

Sometimes it's tempting to cut all cords and wireless, eschew all technology, and go back to quill pen and foolscap. But that's not an option, not if I wish to function in today's hooked-up dialed-in world.

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You tell me: What protective measures are you employing here? What works? What doesn't? Do you have any horror stories you wish to share? Use the comments section below.

Twitter's appeal: People love the mundane

I'll have to admit, this Twitter grows on you.

A couple of years ago, I hadn't even heard of Twitter, and even a year ago I wondered what the point of it was.

Twitter is called a "microblogging service," which allows one to post whatever he wants online, as long as it's no more than 140 characters. Twitter basically asks the question, what are you doing now?

And most of the posts (called "tweets" in Twitter parlance) indicate that a lot of people have no real life, and should stay away from computers. I mean, how many posts about the mundane can you endure?

It's this mundane stuff that seems to be much of Twitter's appeal. And, it's become huge. According to ComputerWorld, people are tweeting from the car, the theater, from restaurants, even from the can. But, the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology studied these short messages -- actually from Jaiku, a microblogging platform that Twitter is practically edging out of existence -- and suggests most of the posts are beyond inane. And the Oxford University Press studied 1.5 million "tweets" and came to the same conclusion.

Newsweek columnist Daniel Lyons calls Twitter "a playground for imbeciles, skeevy marketers, D-list celebrity half-wits, and pathetic attention seekers," citing folks like Shaquille O'Neal, Kim Kardashian, znd Ryan Seacrest as regulars in TwitLand.

"It's morbidly fascinating, kind of like the forbidden thrill you get watching Maury Povich's show or professional wrestling," Lyons wrote. "You know it's awful. You know you shouldn't enjoy it, yet you can't look away. That, I'm afraid to say, is why I've come to believe that, of all the hellish things that have been spawned in the fever swamp that is the Internet, Twitter may turn out to be the most successful of them all—not in spite of its stupidity, but because of it."

Lyons said that one recent study -- though he didn't cite it in his article, so the findings are immediately suspect -- said that 40 percent of tweets were "pointless babble." Only 40 percent? My own study, using a time-honored methodology called "pulling numbers out of my butt," suggests close to 70 percent of tweets are mindless, worthless wastes of server space.

Shoot, I don't want to know what you're having for dinner, unless I'm invited. I personally don't give a rip that you're going to the bathroom now, and I REALLY don't want to know how it came out. Are we on the same page here?

Twitter is one of those things where the machine is invented first and you find out what you can use it for later. And, so far, a few put it to good use. It was someone on Twitter who brought us up to speed, real-time, on the election protests in Iran a few months ago. Someone else used the microblogging service to send us the first pictures of that plane crash in the Hudson River in January, the one where the pilot did such an incredible job of keeping all his passengers alive.

I've picked up a few blog ideas from tweets, and some interesting reading has come my way through Twitter. A few job leads. And, I notice businesses use Twitter to introduce product lines, throw out ideas, you name it. Used properly (and I'm sure there's a trick to it), one with good leadership chops can build his own ready-made parade to get in front of.

When you do the Twitter thing, you find out who else is using that service, and you may elect to "follow" a person. Or someone else may opt to follow you. For a minute that seemed too strange for words, like I'm being stalked or something. But that's how word about something can get out quickly. I have a mixed bag of followers on Twitter. Most are legit, the kind of folks I wouldn't mind chatting with over some coffee. But other followers are nothing but smarmy hucksters with an agenda. But since I'm the one making the tweets, I'm calling the shots. I'm pretty selective about who I follow, but am less discriminate about who chooses to follow me. Hey, if the sketchier followers click on the link and make it to this article (and if they're not easily offended), we're all cool with it.

Admittedly, I wasn't really sure what to do with my Twitter account once I opened it. I used it for a while for short, newsy items via text message directly into a sidebar on one of my blogs -- like dispatches from last November's election -- until I found out how to post directly to the blog from my cell phone. But after that I figured out how I can use Twitter.

I'm finding it another vehicle for getting word out on my blogs. Both -- The Column, Reloaded and The Workbench, Reloaded -- automatically drop links into Twitter through a service called Twitterfeed, so you can open my prose directly from there. As soon as I started using that, my readership jumped considerably.

Occasionally I'll send out a tweet on something else I'm working on, sort of a teaser for this blog. I've done this from the computer, and often via text message from my phone. (If you see a ~E at the end of a tweet -- or a short blog entry -- it means I turned my cell phone into remote control. I love showing off.)

Ooooh, I'm doing something really stupidly mundane now, and I've got to let my followers know all about it. A 140-character review to follow.

(Lest I forget: Follow me on Twitter!)

Plug-in turns Explorer into nemesis Google browser

Who would've thunk it?

So you don't like Internet Explorer. You'd rather play hand grenade volleyball than use IE to browse the web, but the computer isn't yours. It may be one of those work-issued laptops and you're stuck with what you have.

Google came out with a plug-in that basically turns IE into Google Chrome. I find the whole concept a real hoot, as there is no love lost between Google and Microsoft. According to TechCrunch:

... Google seems to dislike IE so much that it has spent its own time improving it. Google claims its goals are noble. Talking to Group Product Manager Mike Smith and Software Engineer Alex Russell, they tell us that they simply want to make a more seamless web experience for both web users and developers. That said, they are only targeting one browser, IE, right now ... and that seems fair. IE, which is of course made by Google nemesis Microsoft, is both the largest web browser and the one with a poor history when it comes to web standards. Things have gotten better since IE6, but that’s really not saying much ...

The way I understand it, ChromeFrame builds a whole new frame inside of IE that is really the Google browser. You'll lose some resources because you're running two browsers, but Chrome is plenty fast. Even with the extra load on your system, using the "fake" Chrome on top of IE is still a sight faster than running IE straight.

Years ago, before I discovered Mozilla, I came across what was then called Crazy Browser. It also ran on top of IE, but it offered a popup blocker and tabbed browsing. At the time, popup blocking was in its infancy (you needed a third-party application to do it), and tabbed browsing -- the greatest invention for ADHD Web surfers -- was still several years in coming for IE though Mozilla was playing with a kludgy rough draft of it. And even on my dial-up connection, Crazy Browser was blistering fast. I found this especially amazing because IE (I was then using the abortion called IE 6) was, to put it kindly, glacial. Call it fuzzy math -- extra memory used to run Crazy Browser atop the IE framework should not equal faster, but it really did.

Crazy Browser more or less disappeared off the face of the Web, but I see it's back. Just for grins, I downloaded it to check it out.

I've tested out the real Chrome, and I like it so far. It's a little goofy in handling bookmarks, but I think most of that is because I'm not used to it. It's a fast browser -- to my nonscientific touch-annd-feel tests, it's right up there with Opera in the speed department, and of course it handles my Google applications easily. For the most part, though, I use it for posting blogs and little else. I'll admit I haven't really scratched the surface as far as Chrome's capabilities; I don't know if it has all the extensions and plug-ins you'll find in, say, Firefox, but it's a whole lot better than using IE.

In case you're interested, you can get ChromeFrame here.

Careful of the ad, even if source is copacetic

This is must reading if you spend any time online.

... while reading the New York Times online, I was confronted with an attempted security attack, apparently delivered through an advertisement. A window popped up, mimicking an antivirus scanner. After "scanning" my computer, it reported finding viruses and invited me to download a free antivirus scanner. The displays implied, without quite saying so, that the messages came from my antivirus vendor and that the download would come from there too. Knowing how these things work, I recognized it right away as an attack, probably carried by an ad. So I didn't click on anything, and I'm fairly certain my computer wasn't infected ...

Source: Freedom To Tinker blog.

Like the man so tiresomely said in Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there."

Gmail account note probably work of fools

I've had Gmail accounts for several years now, and just today I received a most disturbing message:

Dear Account User,

This Email is from Gmail customer care and we are sending it to every Gmail accounts owner for safety. We are having congestion due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Gmail users and removal of all unused Gmail Accounts. Gmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, you will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* User name: ............................

* Password: ................................

* Date of Birth: ............................

* Country Or Territory: ....................

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently.

Thank you for using Gmail !

The Gmail Team

G MAI L BETA

Anyway, that's the message.

So far as I know, it's all crap.

Just swallow down that bile rising in the throat for a moment, OK?

A couple of things:

Why anyone would want my account name and password is beyond me, unless it's for nefarious purposes.

Check it:

If it was from Gmail, they'd already have all that.

Got it?

I had a partial answer here, which if nothing else confirmed what I'd already figured.

So if you have gmail and received that message, ignore it. Keep in mind, that's what happens when we have idiots on the Internet.

(Posted simultaneously in The Column, Reloaded and The Workbench, Reloaded)

Review: Are Netbooks hip or hype?

I've joined the laptop crowd, kinda sorta.

Recently I acquired an Acer Aspire One, one of the new breed of mini-laptops that they in the industry call "netbooks." A pretty handy little device; about the size of a hardback book.

It's not a full laptop, and if you put it up against one of the larger, faster portables you'll definitely see a difference. But these smaller units have caught on, sold like crazy,  and created their own category: netbooks.

A bit of history on these netbooks: The idea came about a couple of years ago with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. This effort was to design a mini-computer rugged enough to tote everywhere, with wireless connectivity, no hard drive, and cheap enough to be distributed among third-world children. Or something like that, anyway. The designers hoped they could make a tough little $100 laptop. Of course this concept didn't work out in the real world as it did on paper, but the Acer -- like the Asus Eee, is a direct descendant of the OLPC project.

The last laptop I'd used was an old Toshiba Satellite, a 486 system running Windows 95. I can't remember how much RAM it had, but it certainly not enough to handle today's software. And for years I used a roll-your-own laptop, which was little more than a Sony Clie handheld (with a Palm OS) hooked up to a foldout keyboard. This was the ultimate in portability -- I could stow the two pieces in my coat pocket -- but I was limited in what kind of files I could move. This setup didn't have Internet access, though I could connect up by piggybacking through my desktop rig. This was great for what I really needed to do, keeping myself organized (always a monumental task) and editing text files away from home.

For a long time I had my eye on a cheap (read: thrown-away) laptop, but that wasn't forthcoming. Instead, I opted for the Acer, which goes for about half the price of most laptops, has wireless connectivity, allows me to work on the go, and is small enough to stow in my backpack. At a little less than two-and-a-half pounds, we're not talking about any significant load at all, and I keep it in a zippered document bag that fits it nicely.

It's lightweight under the hood, too. My unit has 1 gigabyte of RAM, an Intel Atom processor with 1596 mHz CPU speed, and a 160-gig solid-state hard drive. This last part is cool, as many Netbooks lack a hard drive, leaving you to save files to a USB thumb drive).

For connections it has three USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, a six-in-one memory card reader, and a slot for an additional storage card. Add some nearly-useless stereo speakers and a minimal built-in Webcam, and that's the package. None of it is truly outstanding, but that's where you decide exactly what your needs are before buying the Aspire -- or if you're half smart, any other computer.

Personal note: My desktop/workhorse is quite old (256MB RAM, 1.3 GHZ, 80G hard drive, running Linux), so the minimal hardware on the Aspire is not as big an issue with me. About the most memory-intensive thing I do is editing and mixing sound files, and I try to stick with software that's as bloat-free as possible. Plus, I'm not above a little vest-pocket engineering. I'm saving most of my files on a thumb drive anyway so I can work with them on the desktop (Linux) computer, and you can pretty much do anything with a USB drive that you can do with a CD-ROM -- including boot the computer directly from it.


Because it's a subminiature, it will take a lot of coordination and patience to use the Aspire. The screen is small -- a teeny 8.5 inches on the model I have, though some are 10 inches or larger. This one ... well, I find myself maximizing all my windows to fill the screen just so I can see them. The LCD screen is quite clear, though, so reading it is not a problem. On many Web sites, memorize where your PgUp and PgDown buttons are. You'll be using them a lot.

The keyboard is likewise small, in fact the same size as the Belkin foldout keyboard I used with the handheld. Although I'm good with a keyboard, I end up making more typos with this one because of the smaller keys and because I basically have bricks for hands. I don't recommend using this keyboard for long stretches.

The touchpad is a little squirrelly, too, mostly because I've never used one before. Like on a lot of laptops it's below the space bar, in the middle. In fact, right about where my thumb thinks the space bar should be. My unit did come with a half-sized USB optical mouse, so that's an option if that touchpad drives you buggy.

No real problems with the graphics, though sound leaves a lot to be desired. Even using headphones, playing music through it doesn't sound as good as it does from my desktop or mp3 player. I tried recording with the built-in mic, and immediately decided it's pretty bad.

Now that I've eviscerated the Aspire ...

I find it's best at going on line just about anywhere. The other day, bicycling home from work, I stopped off at a college campus, plunked my butt down on a bench, dragged out the Aspire, found a wireless signal, and went to work. Email. Downloaded a few songs. Checked a few Web sites (if you must know, some sites with info on how to put Linux on the Aspire!). Edited a column or two. Got quite a bit done. The only real on-the-road drawback is that battery life is limited to between two and three hours, so if there's some heavy work ahead you might want to pack the two-piece A/C adaptor.

I'm also keeping my most important files -- particularly my mp3 collection (at more than 1,800 songs and growing) -- on this unit's hard drive as a backup. That in itself is huge.

I'll grant you, this unit is nowhere near as powerful as the newer laptops or desktops you can get. Not even close. It clearly won't run under Vista, and Microsoft has been keeping XP around mostly for these Netbooks. That in itself doesn't worry me; Vista is an abortion anyway.

What was almost a deal-breaker for me is that most netbooks -- including the Aspire One -- have no CD-ROM drive. And the keyboard is much smaller than even your average laptop's. But the Acer isn't really designed to be someone's main unit, and even the limited specs make it a whole lot faster than my ancient desktop.

Another almost-deal-breaker for me is that it's very difficult to install or run a different operating system on this rig. Some versions of the Acer come with Linux, but this one is loaded with Windows XP Home Edition (Service Pack 3) -- ironically, Linux is my preference. Theoretically, I can install Linux via dual-boot, using the thumb drive in lieu of a CD-ROM to load the system. I'm still toying with it, and this will become fodder for a future posting.

Here's some bottom line stuff:

Don't buy the Aspire One because it's "cute," although I'll admit the little bugger IS cute. Don't get it if it's the only computer you have, unless you will only use it to go on line. Don't buy one expecting the latest gee-whiz bleeding-edge software. Don't get it if you plan to use the keyboard a lot, or have problems with smaller keyboards, or need a large display. Don't get it if you want Vista or whatever operating system Microsoft develops to replace that abortion. Don't get it if you can't leave stuff alone. Don't get it if you already have a perfectly good laptop, unless you're looking for a spare.

Get it, though, if you need to go ultraportable, if you want a mini-laptop that can go with you everywhere, or if you're looking for a cheaper option for a laptop.

==========

[You tell me! What's your experience with netbooks? Do you have one? Do you love it or hate it? Use the comments section for your input.]

It's like carrying a computer in your pocket

In recent days my wireless Internet connection has been extremely troublesome, more down than up. Borderline worthless, in fact. I guess you sometimes get what you pay for.

So I'm using library computers to post blogs and check my email. A pain, yes, especially in taking the time to get to the library, but other than that it's not that big a problem.

I'm not a fan of the software set you find on most public computers. I seldom use word processors when I write, and I'd rather take a nitric acid enema than surf with Internet Explorer. Plus, I don't necessarily want the next person on the computer to know where I've been.

No worries. I carry my own software in my pocket. Plug in a USB thumb drive, and it's like I'm using my own computer without lugging the hardware around. For sheer portability, this even beats a laptop and it's a lot cheaper.

For the price of a USB stick and a quick download, you can get a suite of software that you can run on just about any Windows-based computer, privately. Browser history, cookies, bookmarks, and preferences stay on the thumb drive. Called Portable Apps, the programs fit nicely on one of the older 256-megabyte drives. Default programs in the smaller version include Firefox, Abiword, ClamWin, and a couple of games.

While I've added a couple of other programs to my Portable Apps suite, just having Firefox makes it a worthy download. I have several must-have extensions to Firefox, including ScribeFire, my blogging workhorse. All of this is set to my specifications, saving me a lot of hassle when I'm working in one-hour sessions with different computers.

So when I'm using a public unit, I plug in two thumb drives: A 256-meg oldie that has my Portable Apps, and a 1-gig drive which carries my files. And even that step is probably unnecessary; I can just as easily use one thumb drive for everything. But no matter; I'm still carrying my own computer in my pocket.

Here's an unexpected bonus when running Portable Apps: Many public computers are set so you can't download. Which makes sense; a real good way to trash a computer system is to allow random people to download whatever they want. What with all the viruses and malware around, that's the quickest way to spread the love.

But using the portable Firefox, I've been able to download all sorts of goodies, up to entire operating systems, on public computers.

I haven't tested this part out, but theoretically you can surf sites that are blocked, such as your myspace page, from a work computer while using an outside browser. My supervisor's work computer allows you to only surf the company web site, and I suggested (we obviously get along very well on the job) that she can surf whatever she wants using the portable browser. However, she's afraid to try, and I'm not going to attempt it on her computer, so this idea remains theoretical in my book. Maybe one of my readers is willing to try it for me, and I'd welcome any input.

If this theory proves correct, Portable Apps may well be a screw-off's best friend on the job.

AbiWord is the word processor that comes with Portable Apps, and on those rare occasions I use such a program (give me a plain-vanilla text editor any time), AbiWord is what I'll run. It's a lot lighter than Microsoft Word, has many of the same functions, plays well with .doc files, and is free and open-source.

ClamWin is a virus protection program, and in truth I've never experimented with that. But I can see the usefulness here. You'll find a couple of other Mozilla-based programs, too: Sunbird, a calendar. Thunderbird, a mail reader. And a Sudoku game, if you have a little time to burn off or are totally addicted to that !!#$&!! game.

The folks at Portable Apps have been developing several other programs that you can plug in to your suite, and I snagged a few of them. There's Audacity, a sound editor that I've used for recording my band's music, and Notepad+, a text editor. And a whole bunch of others, allowing you to carry a whole set of software on your key chain.

Unless you can get a whole operating system on a USB drive (which is doable, and this is something I may write about in a future entry), you can't get much more portable than that.

 

Google Chrome license agreement fixed

Update on Google Chrome: The End User License Agreement has been fixed to remove the most objectionable qualities (the ones I mentioned in previous posts).

This looks a whole lot better. (This is taken from the download page, as you can see from the "accept and install" button.)

Personal footnote: Nealy all of the software I use is under the GNU GPL, what the folks there call a "copyleft." So, to me, the Chrome EULA seems a little heavy, but it wouldn't be if you're used to using proprietary software anyway.

(Still waiting for the Linux version of Chrome; I must test it out.)

Some stats ... 'cause I can

Just for giggles, I was able to compile stats of the last 50 people who browsed on the sister site, The Column Reloaded, to illustrate which operating systems and Web browsers are being used by my readers.

Operating systems:

4 used Windows Vista.
38 used Windows XP.
7 used Apple OSX.
1 used what was called an "unrecognized" operating system.

Web browsers:

22 used Internet Explorer. Of those, 13 used version 7.0, and nine ran 6.0.

22 used Firefox. Of these, 16 used version 3.0, five were on 2.0, and one used version 1.5. Interestingly, that one was running the unrecognized OS.

6 used Safari.

(I used The Column, Reloaded because this tech blog is too new to generate any meaningful statistics.)

My blog is certainly not a real good sample of what people are using in their computers. In fact the numbers are practically useless, though they are interesting.

Interesting that Vista hasn't shown up more in my readership; I'd figured with all that hype somebody would have bought the system. But even brand-new, made-for-Vista-with-the-system-preloaded can be downgraded to XP, and I understand quite a few people have gone that route.

Being a dyed-in-the-wool Linux user, I'm disappointed there are no fellow penguinistas in the mix.

If I was a betting man, I'd say that "unrecognized" operating system is a BSD type. More of an industrial-strength UNIX, largely unknown among the masses but there's a following there. I'd fooled with BSD systems here and there, but really little more than a test drive. (Linux, too, is built from a UNIX base, and OSX -- the MacIntosh system -- has its roots in BSD.)

I'm intrigued by that even split between Firefox and IE. Now that's a real anomaly; in the real world Firefox doesn't have that big a market share. Most computer users, I'm afraid, think that big "e" icon on the desktop means Internet.

I'm also surprised no one was using Opera. I've run that off and on, and always liked it. It's fast, but you can't add all those extensions like you can with Firefox.

As for myself, I'm using a Debian Gnu/Linux derivative, with the Sid (unstable -- bleeding edge) build. To surf the Web I'm using Iceweasel, an unbranded version of Firefox 3.0.

Where did I get my statistics? Through Feedjit, which provided that "Playing In Traffic" box on this site. Another of those cool tools every blogger should have.