Tag Archive for 'Geek'

What is lacking in today’s web browsers

Published
by
Mitch
on September 2, 2008
in Geek and Rant
. 2 Comments

With everything happening in today’s browser market one can’t wonder why all players seem to be missing one major hitpoint with all their attempts to gain market share. In my opinion there is one large component that is being missed by browsers today and it should be reasonable easy to develop. What I’m talking about is cross-platform, cloud-based integration. I’ll explain as I go.

Firstly let me make my point by explaining my current browser setup. At home I run a Mac and at work I use a PC. On both I have Firefox as my browser of choice, but due to the necessity of my work CRM I also use Internet Explorer 6/7 on both. I use several plugins to try and sync as best I can between the computers, but inevitably it’s all just a fix. Okay, so now I will try and make my point.

Google released Chrome today which has some interesting features. Tighter integration to applications is great, but is it enough to win the browser war? Better security is always a good thing, but in a market where most computer users don’t even know which anti-virus they’re running, does it really matter? In fact, most of the features are aimed at techies and not the people who actually need enhanced functionality from an out-of-the-box browser.

Imagine a browser that worked like this… You launch the application and you’re greeted with a login screen. You enter a username and password and the browser works it’s magic; it downloads your bookmarks, it loads your plugins, it downloads your saved passwords, it downloads your form information, and it also loads your history.

Now imagine the same thing can happen on any computer you’re using, with the same features and plugins, even if you’ve never used that computer before. Simple huh? How easy would your life be, honestly?

So many plugins have tried to make this happen, but it’s never truly been seamless and it’s never been 100%, especially when it turns to cross-platform. This would be, as Tolkien would say, “One Browser to rule them all, One Browser to bind them!” Think about it.

Speaking of Film Credits

Published
by
Mitch
on June 11, 2008
in Claire
. 0 Comments

Those who know me know that I am a jack of all trades when it comes to the digital world. I’ve done design, digital photography, web development, systems administration, studied a computer science degree, and I am an all-round technophile.

One thing I never got involved in, and for some reason never wanted to, was animation. The idea of it just made me feel anxious and the fiddly nature just always turned me off. That is, until this week.

For almost the entire weekend I spent all of my time locked in a UTS editing lab with Claire working on animation for her film. Firstly, we make an awesome animation team and her film will be great. Secondly, I absolutely love animation and After Effects after the experience.

I am currently in the process of building Claire’s online showreel and it could very well feature some animation work done by the two of us, which I will happily post a link to it here after it’s up. Congratulations to Claire for an awesome job on her film, which by the way is screening tonight! You’ve done great!

The Things You Own, Own You

Published
by
Mitch
on April 7, 2008
in Geek, Lifehacking and Tech Talk
. 5 Comments

This morning while perusing some news items I came across an interesting article on SMH about people who spend money on gadgets they can’t necessarily afford, don’t need the features and certainly don’t have the computer savvy mind to “drive” these devices.

As a gadget geek I scoffed at the implication that people are so silly that they buy devices they don’t use, but then suddenly found myself looking inwards to think about how I use my technology and just how much value it all adds to my life.

The first thing that comes to my phone. Every time I bring it out of my pocket geeks, and non-geeks alike, look in wonderment and start asking me about the features. When I tell them about the 5MP camera and GPS they are so impressed that they begin to talk about wanting one. But do I even use it?

To go through my rather extremely extensive geek collection and lay out how much I use, this might take a while but will paint a pretty accurate picture of what I need and don’t need.

Hold on to your hats.

Nokia N95
GPS - 3 times in 6 months
Camera - often more than once a day
Web - several times a day
SMS - several times a day
Calling - almost all day constantly - it’s my job

Work Blackberry (new, but this is assumptive)
E-mail - all day
Phone - all day, it will take over from my N95 for work calls
Web - several times a day
Calender / extra feature - all day

MacBook
All features - for a few hours a day or every other day

iPod 60GB
Music - every morning and afternoon after work
Video - once a week or maybe less

iPod Nano 4GB
Music - several times a week jogging, ideally, but actually not as often as I should
Video - never

Canon 350D D-Rebel
Photos (d’uh) - once a week but maybe less

PSP (Playstation Portable)
Games - less than a few times a month
Internet - Not often, but I should use more such as RSS on the bus
Other features - Never

X-Box
Haven’t touched it in years

Miscellaneous
Printer - not in years
Photo printer - even longer
Desktop PC - over a year
Television - in storage for over a year
iPod Shuffle - over a year
Palm T|X - over a year since I smashed the screen, but didn’t use enough at all

Plus god knows how much else that I can’t even think of…

How much of this stuff just belongs on eBay? Maybe just making some streamlining to my life to use fewer gadgets and use them more often? There is just too much junk here and considering most of it is portable, I have none of it with me (barring my phone of course) on a day-to-day basis.

What is your experience of buying technologies you don’t use? How many hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars worth of electo-crap do you have lying around your house?