Opera 9.6
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Software
Boy time flies, whether you’re having fun or not.
It’s already been just over a month since Google Chrome came out, and I guess it shows how much of a Google fan boy I am because I’m still using it. I’ve completely switched from Opera and while there have been little annoyances about Chrome once in a while, I understand it is a ‘true’ beta product.
Opera 9.6 introduces a new feature that seems promising, the “Scroll Marker”:
The new Opera Scroll Marker makes it easier to continue reading when you scroll through a Web page. At the end of the page it will indicate the previous position of the bottom of the screen so you can easily see where to continue reading.
-Opera 9.6 Change log
Its very unobtrusive and sleek, but I’m finding it doesn’t always show up whenever I scroll, and having an inconsistent helper, I find, is worse then having none at all.
Opera has also launched an online tutorial which helps get someone up to speed with the browsers features, it’s quite newb friendly ;)
Now I guess time will tell whether I switch back to Opera, or continue going through the occasional sufferance with Chrome.
Tags: Browser, Chrome, Google, Opera, Software
The Google OS is here
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Software
No really, it is!
Well kind of, It’s probably just not what you had in mind.
First of all, what could one consider a “Google OS” to be?
One could reply that its an OS designed to integrate Google’s web based application line, with traditional desktop applications with focus on search, ease of use, and stability.
Fine maybe thats just my take on it, but its not a bad take..
So then what kind of applications does an OS need?
Well there’s a need for productivity software (Mail, Calendar, Document control). Communication (IM, Social Networking, Online discussion).
Media (Images, Video).
Anyone can see where I’m going with this, so if Google already has so many desktop applications being ported to the web then why does it need to create a whole OS to interact with them?
They don’t.
Introducing: Google Chrome, must-read overview here.
Why do I call it the Google OS, well think about it; The real “Google OS” is actually all in cyberspace. So all one needs to do is use a browser to access it.
But By creating a browser that will run on Windows/Mac/Linux, Google has created a universally stable “OS” that will be able to handle all Google Apps effectively.
Tags: Browser, Chrome, Google, OS, Software, Web
foobar2000
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Media, Software
Of late I’ve been keeping busy experimenting with foobar2000, an extremely functional music player for Windows. In the process of converting over to foobar from Windows Media Player I also ended up doing a little of re-structuring my music collection.
In the past I had all my music sorted via:
- Music \ [Artist] \ [Album] \ [## Track Name.mp3]
But since I decided to finally incorporate all the Hindi music I have with the English music I realized I had to change things a little. Doing so meant I could also include all the music that I’ve collected as single songs, and not part of an album. In addition to what I already had I also developed an ear for classical music around the time I started using foobar, so I ended up with a structure inside my Music folder like so:
- [Folder] \ [Artist] \ [Year] [Album] \ [## Track Name.mp3]
- Where “Folder” is one of the following six folders, and “##” is the track number.
- \Artists
- All my english music that I have in complete albums falls into this category except for soundtrack releases.
- \Classical
- The Beethoven’s, and Tchaikovsky’s of this world rest within.
- \Hindi
- All my Hindi music, even though the majority of it is all movie soundtracks.
- \Playlists
- Foobar has built in dynamic playlist support, but occasionally it is useful to save a hard (soft?) copy of a playlist.
- \Single Tracks
- All the singles of my youth, I’ve had some of these files for 5 or so years.
- \Soundtracks
- Black Hawk Down, Mary Poppins, Metal Gear Solid, Pirates of the Caribbean, Phantom of the Opera…the list goes on and on.
One of the many things that make me “as happy as a pig in shit”, is the ability to browse my library via “facets”, a dynamic list that sorts using AND and/or OR logic in a hierarchal manner. It’s one of those times when a picture does indeed say a thousand words.
Thanks to Frank Bicking for his work developing the Facets component.
I’m sure I’ll write more on foobar in the future.
The downfall of Flickr
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Software
Yes, that’s right…
Every night I creep down to my tool shed and find the hidden trap door, which leads to a dark and dreary room with nothing but a lone bookshelf that I feel my way towards. I depress the hidden button which slowly but surely starts the mechanics that proceed to revolve both me and the bookshelf, all the time creaking and complaining, as I emerge into a laboratory that one could only associate with a mad scientist.
Creative writing aside, and on to the topic at hand.
Flickr is an amazing web site; or service, or application, depending on what floats your Web 2.0 boat. If one is looking for a reliable, easy to use, method of sharing their pictures Flickr is definitely the first name that comes to mind. It is my own opinion of course, but I have spent an extensive amount of time looking at various sites and hosting solutions and while some are very good, very few - if any, can match Flickr in all areas. Not to mention the enormous Flickr community, that as of this writing is uploading approximately 5000 pictures a minute to the Flickr servers.
But after saying all that, I do have some personal gripes with the service, mainly when it comes to the browsing experience. In trying to make Flickr as easy to use as possible, it has been made into an experience that is extremely limiting to someone of my particular nature.
A couple of examples that come to mind are:
- Inability to fully customize the photostream layout
- Mass organization becomes harder as one adds more pictures to his account
- Tagging of pictures is extremely hard to do online when you have more than a few to deal with
- Hidden and/or poorly documented features, (eg. search via multiple tags, hidden layouts)
- Interface in general is hard to navigate for a new viewer
- No offline sorting/editing applications
- No advanced tag management services, (eg. syncing with local images, create albums that auto propagate with tags)
So I have come to the decision that instead of further aggravating myself while using Flickr, I shall instead rely on building my own CMS to host my family pictures. To achieve this end, I have chosen Drupal (at least to start with), as it has an excellent user community and has very active development under works. Drupal has also been an active participant in Google’s Summer of Code since its kick off in 2006, if they’re good enough for Google - they’re good enough for me :P
I can’t wait to implement OpenID into my Image Gallery!
Now in the past I’ve had some horrible experiences with Drupal, namely due to its development cycle. I installed the latest version of Drupal, but all the essential modules were for the previous version, which just caused huge amounts of frustration. And even last night, I made the same mistake of installing Drupal version 6.3, as that’s the latest version..but all the essential modules are still only on Drupal 5.x (Which ironically is the version that they didn’t work for me before).
So I started over and went with the stable release of the last major version, and things have been going extremely smoothly. I expect something to be in production in the next week or two.
Regarding the blog theme, I was in a little frustrated mood and so decided to change the colouring to vent my frustration.
Flickr Blog Layout
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Software
This is basically a memo post, just so two years down the road when Flickr decides to do an “update” I don’t have to figure out my custom layout again.
So in other words, just move along.
</p> <div class=”alignleft” style=”float: left; text-align: center; margin-right: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px;” mce_style=”float: left; text-align: center; margin-right: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px;”><a title=”{photo_title}” rel=”flickr-mgr” href=”{photo_url}” mce_href=”{photo_url}” target=”_blank”><img class=”flickr-medium” src=”{photo_src_t}” mce_src=”{photo_src_t}” alt=”{photo_title}” /></a><br /> <span style=”font-size: 0.8em; margin: 0px;” mce_style=”font-size: 0.8em; margin: 0px;”><br /> <a href=”{photo_url}” mce_href=”{photo_url}”>{uploader_name}</a><br /> </span></div> <p>{description}</p> <p>
re: Test Post from Flickr
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Software
Hey look, I just linked my Blog and Flickr…and also sent a test post to make sure everything works.
One little problem, the fact that Flickr was able to log in using the supplied credentials is good enough a “test” for me. When I clicked test post, I imaginged I would get a test of, you know AN IMAGE and how it looks.
Guess not eh.
Flickr
Posted by Pavan Chander | Filed under Software
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
