Google finally released Chrome, their new (and long rumored) browser yesterday so I had to take it for a quick spin at work.  My initial reaction is that it’s a pretty solid and fast beta.  Its biggest flaw at the moment is that it’s Windows only right now, but there’s a lot to like otherwise.  Things that I like:

• Tabbed interface – every tab gets its own address bar and can be easily moved around
• Sandboxing – every tab/page is kept in its own process/memory sandbox and a bad page can’t take down the whole browser.
• Fast – javascript is blazing and this browser ran great on the old 1GHz/512MB XP machine I tried it out on.
• Efficient – memory management is really good.
• WebKit based – builds on all the quality open source work that Apple has done with Safari.
• Open Source – innovations should trickle down throughout the rest of the industry.
• IE 8 just became that much more irrelevant.
• Evan Martin – I’ve been reading this guy’s LiveJournal for years so it’s really cool to find out he’s directly involved in the project a developer.
• Scott McCloud comic – I can’t think of a cooler way to introduce the features.

I’ve been test driving Firefox 3 for a few hours now (after finally getting access to a download link) and I’m really liking it so far.  The fact that it actually looks like a native MacOS X application, is huge in my book.

I only have a couple add-ons installed at the moment, but Firefox 3 definitely seems speedy out of the box.  We’ll see how it does once I start adding in some more plugins.

At any rate, if you haven’t downloaded Firefox 3 yet go download it and check it out (and help break the world download record if it’s still June 17/18, 2008).  Official Firefox 3 Download Counter (1.8 million and counting as I write this).

The latest Mozilla build seems pretty snappy on Windows 2000. I guess I need to find some really taxing sites and see how it does with those.

Looks like iCab does indeed work with Blogger. I checked my iCab preferences and discovered that InScript is not activated by default. Turning it on allows you to publish. Cool!

The new version of iCab is out and it supports JavaScript (or InScript in this case with trademarks and such being what they are). Unlike IE 4.5 for the Mac, it actually seems to work with Blogger as I’m using it right this moment (got to love that German engineering). Oops I spoke too soon, I can post stuff, but the publish button dosen’t do anything. That and there’s still no support for CSS. Still, it’s great to see some third party competition for the big two and it is still in Beta.

In the tradition of EvHead, Megnut and countless other weblogs, I’m hoping to do my own redesign sometime this week. This will of course have to be fit in between work, basketball practice, basketball games, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, eating, spending time with my girlfriend, Ferazel’s Wand, updating my weblog, riding my bike, and everything else. No Mary, those items were not listed by order of importance!

Bye-bye free time, my copy of SMAC for the Mac has arrived.

I was starting to think Etherlife was never going to be funny again after the last couple weeks. Thankfully Zach came back strong this week and allayed my fears. I especially enjoyed today’s bit of geek humor.

Mozilla Milestone 13 is ready to rumble. Hopefully this version will have fixed some of the keyboard command issues for the Macintosh.

I’m still annoyed that IE 5 for the Macintosh isn’t ready to go yet.

The live webcast is working surprisingly well. I guess that Akamai network technology really works. The new iDrive technology is fairly intriguing. Looks like they’re going to be rolling out Mac OS X throughout the next year with sales starting during the summer (presumably around MacWorld).

Wow! MacOS X looks great! Makes me want to run out and become and Apple Developer so I can get the new betas later this year.

The only disappointing item in the presentation was that the Microsoft Rep sounded like IE 5 for the Macintosh won’t be out until the end of January. I guess their official press release will be in a half hour.

One new IE 5 feature that is definitely a good thing is that there is a mode to make pages render at the 96 dpi industry standard and end the micro font rendering woes that occur when reading PC generated pages. I noticed Mozilla build 12 for the Mac does the same thing a while back as well. Standardization is always a good thing!

I’ve successfully connected to the live web broadcast of Steve Job’s keynote. Boy, do they play some cheezy music while we’re waiting for it to begin.

I am really looking forward to the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer. Hopefully it will be released today sometime, rather than later in the week. I checked the Microsoft Mactopia, but there was no sign as of yet. Of course Steve Job’s keynote address isn’t for another half hour anyway.

Lest everyone think I’m a freakish Microsoft loving Mac user I should point out I’m also really looking forward to the next version of Netscape Communicator, although I wish it was going to be a standalone browser rather than integrated with composer and email. Mozilla build 12 is definitely promising and if the final product works better for me than IE I will make the switch.

Right now I prefer to use IE 4.5 for the Mac, but I’m forced to use Netscape Communicator as well because it works better with Blogger. Communicator also crashes more and seems to want use its own, older Java run time rather than Apple’s newer improved model (which IE uses).

Got a question about Mathematics? Go to the CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics. Everything mathematical from Abacus to Zsigmondy Theorem.

Holy site personalization! Nike’s starting to let you customize your shoes online. And that includes putting a Nike approved eight character identifier on the back of the shoes!

MacWeek has part two in a three part series on installing and using LinuxPPC. I’m hoping to play with my LinuxPPC box tonight, we’ll see if I can fit it in.

I’m taking Mozilla Milestone 11for a spin and it seems to be working fairly well. There are still clearly some things to be ironed out, but it’s looking like Microsoft hasn’t won the browser war yet.