Less heat more light please

I posted something on Twitter a few days ago that, while some may think it hypocritical coming from someone who has had their fair share of fanboy moments, is actually the truth.

It stems from this whole iPhone vs. Android thing that has been going on in our office ever since I got my Android phone a few months ago, and which, I have to confess was at least in part of my own making (although even if I'd said nothing I don't doubt there would have been some people who would still have kicked up a fuss).

But it goes beyond phones and highlights something that has been bugging me for a while now. It's this whole thing of slagging off, either directly or indirectly, people, products, companies, ideas, etc. that don't tally up with your own particular views, preferences or lifestyle choices.

It's nothing new, and it can be found across every part of society, but it seems to have been implicitly sanctioned among techie circles as if its somehow ok to be derogatory if you're talking about technology. Just look at the vehemence with which people will not only defend their particular brand of phone or computer or games console, but also belittle and ridicule the competition as if it was so completely ridiculous that anyone could possibly have a different opinion or make a different choice. And of course, what is implied is that the people who have made those different choices and hold those different opinions are therefore somehow a bit retarded or stupid or deluded or whatever!

Competition is good and healthy and necessary, don't get me wrong, that's not what I'm arguing against. Nor am I suggesting that people shouldn't hold opinions or defend their choices. But what I am saying is that when that spills over into arrogance, pride, or antagonism, it turns sour and has a detrimental effect all round.

Not only is it unpleasant, I think it is actually damaging for the whole industry if these sorts of things take a hold. Far better that people learn to see the good and appreciate the best across the board. My choices are my choices. My opinions are my opinions. Other people are not only entitled to their choices and opinions, they are also just as right about them as I am about mine. That's because most of what lies behind those choices and opinions is purely subjective - what I prefer, rather than what is objectively better. People can - and do - argue at great length over whether this or that technology is better than another, but often the reality is not that one is better, it's simply that they are different. 'Better' depends on your frame of reference.

Anyway, what I am trying to say, in a very roundabout and garbled way, is: lets all just learn to get along. Let's look for the positives rather than the negatives. Let's realise that everyone has got something worthwhile to bring to the table. No-one has it all, no-one is the winner. All common-sense stuff really once you step away from the heat of it all and look at things objectively.

The great iPhone vs Android debate

I've been feeling the need to write this blog entry for some time. I don't blog about much these days - Twitter is so much easier; but trying to say what I want to say in 140 characters is not quite possible.

Let me be clear - I don't hate Apple and I don't think iPhones are rubbish. Yes, there are things I dislike about Apple's way of doing things, but equally they do a lot of things very, very well - the iPhone is a good example of this.

However, since getting my Android phone I have encountered an awful lot of myths about Android, both implicit and explicit, among iPhone users, and I feel compelled to try and dispel/counter them as best I can.

I guess the fact that I am the only person amongst my work colleagues with an Android phone while the vast majority have iPhones, iPods and Macs of various descriptions means there is an inevitable bias towards Apple products, along with the fact that I've always been the sort of person to side with the underdog rather than jump on the bandwagon, tends to get me more worked up than I might otherwise be in a different environment, but nevertheless, I want to try and keep a level head and be reasonable and balanced in what I say.

There are a number of perceptions of Android (the operating system itself and Android phones more generally) that crop up repeatedly:

Android is geeky
Of course, there's nothing wrong with being geeky. But quite where this idea comes from I'm not sure. Well, I have an idea. It's partly the name 'Android' which obviously has a rather techy, geeky, Trekky kind of sound to it - clearly that means nothing, but it may have contributed to the perception to some extent. Partly its the fact that Android is open source and therefore has quite a techy community around it, coupled with the fact that early versions of the OS were still fairly 'beta' compared to the iPhone which came onto the market as a fully finished, packaged product. The situation today is quite different. Yes, Android is still open source, and there is still a large techy community around it, but the OS is no longer anything like beta and can hold its own against the iPhone OS any day, if not surpassing it in some areas. Also, the early adopters of Android did tend to be the geekier types - simply because of the open source, beta thing. But that doesn't mean it's geared towards geeks, or that it is better suited to geeks. Yes, geeky types may well find Android more appealing because of the fact they can play around with the code etc in a way they can't with the iPhone, but that isn't a reflection on the OS as a whole.

iPhones just work
The implication of course is that Android phones require more time and effort to set up, configure and generally use. I can say quite categorically that my HTC Desire couldn't have been simper to set up, configure and start using. I took it out the box, pressed the power button, it asked me to enter my Google, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr usernames and passwords, and that was that, done, ready to go. There was literally nothing else to do.

Now obviously there are plenty of options and settings if you really want to get stuck in and customise the phone. Although to be honest, even as someone who quite enjoys that sort of thing, I've not found the need to as everything works so well already. But I like the fact that the options are there should I decide I want to change something - they're there but don't get in the way, which is key. I sometimes hear the argument that giving people too many options is a bad thing. It's only bad if you force them on the user and confuse them. With Android, the options are there, but if you're not into that sort of thing you can completely ignore them and get on with your life - in fact you don't even need to know they're there.

There are more apps for the iPhone
True, but there are also over 50,000 apps for Android. There are plenty of pointless apps for iPhone just as there are for Android. Most worthwhile apps are available for both, and in fact Android has some notable apps that are not and probably never will be available for iPhone (Google Nav for example).

More apps doesn't therefore necessarily equate to better, and anyway, as Android grows in market share the number of apps is increasing exponentially.

More people use iPhones than Android
The gap is closing fast, actually. But regardless, this in itself means very little. Android was launched later than iPhone, and has taken some time to get to the point where it is mature enough for operators and phone manufacturers to embrace it. Things are changing apace now though, with new Android phones being announced almost weekly. There are also moves to use the Android OS in other applications like cars and household appliances.

No-one cares about 'openness'
One of the things touted by some Android users over iPhone is the fact that its an 'open' system - open source, not controlled tightly by Google in the way iPhone is by Apple. Anyone can develop apps for Android without having to get them approved. This IS a good thing in many ways (although there are obviously advantages with the iPhone approach as well). It's true that on the face of it, the Jo Public doesn't care whether the OS is open source or not, so its not an argument one way or the other really.

Multitasking is bad
iPhone 4 will have multitasking so this is a bit of an old one now. However, there are still myths about this - Steve Jobs even misquoted Larry Page recently saying that some apps can cause battery drain because they don't work well with multitasking. This has been taken by many pro-Apple bloggers to be an admission that multitasking in Android is somehow not up to par, but in fact it was simply an acknowledgement that there are some sub-par apps out there that haven't been built to play nicely with the multitasking environment. That's certainly no indictment of multitasking, but only of those apps.

The reality is that multitasking in Android works absolutely fine. It isn't complicated or geeky in any way shape or form - just as its not on a desktop computer.


I've not covered all the arguments here by any means and this isn't meant to be exhaustive or a proper side by side comparison or anything like that - just addressing some of the common arguments against Android. Doubtless this will generate a veritable storm of comments on Twitter!

One last thing... does it matter? No! There are far more important things to worry about in life.

My Android apps

For what it's worth, here's a list of my currently installed Android apps:

• 3banana Notes
• Air Control
• AndExplorer
• Barcode Scanner
• BarTender Lite
• BatteryTime Pro
• beebPlayer
• Bible
• Blogaway
• Check Web Redirect
• Classic FM
• Dropbox
• Easy Envelope Budget Aid
• Facebook for Android
• Gallery3D (Nexus One gallery)
• Google Maps
• Google Sky Map
• GPS Status
• HTC_IME mod (keyboard with voice to text button)
• InstaFetch Lite
• KeepScreen
• Last.fm - Personal Radio
• Movies
• My Tracks
• OI File Manager
• Pkt Auctions eBay
• Places Directory
• Quick Settings
• RSS to Google Reader
• Setting Profiles Full
• Seesmic for Twitter
• Shazam
• ShopSavvy
• SleepTimer
• SMS Popup
• Solitaire
• Speedtest.net Speed Test
• Spotify
• Twitter
• TxtPad Lite
• UK TV Guide
• VoiceSearch
• WebSharingLite File/Media Sync

Inline-block and hasLayout in IE5 - IE7

http://www.brunildo.org/test/InlineBlockLayout.html

First 2 weeks with the HTC Desire

So, 2 weeks with my new Android-powered HTC Desire. What's the verdict? Well, if you follow me on Twitter you'll already know that I'm quite taken with it, to put it mildly!

For the iPhone lovers reading this, yes I know I rant and rave about it and constantly go on about how its so much better than the iPhone. To be honest, my hands-on experience with iPhones is limited to the occasional play in an Apple store or phone shop (neither of which I spend much time in if I can help it!) and odd occasions when I've borrowed one off a work colleague to try something out briefly. So I can't honestly compare the two side by side, at least not from personal experience. Plenty of other people have already done that and reached their own conclusions. I can however tell you about my experience of Android as an operating system, the HTC Desire as an Android-powered handset (and one of the newest and best at that), and the Sense UI (HTC's tweaked version of the Android interface and core apps.

I honestly can't fault anything - handset, OS, UI or apps. It surpasses my highest hopes and expectations by a long way, which is surprising considering the amount of time (6 months or more) I spent reading, researching, asking questions and generally procrastinating about what phone to go for. I was tempted by the Nexus One but decided in the end that the Desire had the edge. But this isn't a comparison between the N1 and Desire any more than its a comparison between the iPhone and Android (and besides, I've never used an N1 anyway).

The handset itself is really nice. I particularly like the soft-touch back which helps with gripping the phone. The overall build quality, finish and attention to detail is great. The only minor gripe I would have is that when taking the back off / putting it back on again to access the battery, SIM and SD card (which I've only done once mind you) I was a bit worried about breaking it, particularly the plastic clips that attach it to the body of the phone. This is a common thing with many handsets - even when everything else is beautifully designed and engineered, accessing the battery is still a bit of a primitive affair using a thumbnail and brute force!

The optical trackball is a nice touch although I've only needed to use it a couple of times. The 4 physical buttons along the bottom front edge are extremely useful (Home, Menu, Back, Search) and really make navigating around very easy.

I was particularly impressed with how quick and easy the phone was to set up when I initially took it out the box and switched it on. All I had to do was enter my Google, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr account details (all optional of course apart from the Google account, but it just so happens that I use all 4) and that was it! Everything just worked - no messing around with settings or anything. There was a quick start guide in the box, which I didn't need apart from just checking the order in which to plug things in and switch it on the first time in case there was anything I needed to take note of (there wasn't). The full user manual is on the SD card in PDF format but I've not needed it - everything is as about as intuitive and straightforward as it could possibly get.

The interface is extremely slick, and looks amazing on the 480x800 AMOLED screen (this is one thing all the iPhone users who have seen it have immediately commented on!). HTC have added some very useful features to the Android core apps, including built-integration between your contacts (phone/Google), Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. HTC's 'FriendStream' app/widget is a useful if no-frills way of keeping track of friends activity via the various social networks (although I tend to flit between using that and standalone apps for each service). The integration between these services in the People app (contacts) is very nice indeed, with the ability to 'link' contacts across your social networks and address book, which in turn automatically pulls in their profile picture and status updates. And of course, your address book is automatically synced with Google Contacts. (You can sync multiple Google accounts including Apps accounts, but I've not bothered syncing my work contacts as I already have the ones I need in the main Google contact list anyway.)

Having 7 home screens to add apps, widgets and shortcuts to at first seemed like overkill - how would I be able ot fill them all up? But believe me, its easy. For a start there a number of very useful widgets such as HTC's FriendStream (which shows status updates from Facebook, Twitter and Flickr), Bookmarks (a list - or thumbnails - of your internet bookmarks), music players, calendars, clocks, weather etc etc etc.

And of course, apps. The Android Market is accessible directly from the phone and contains something like 30,000 apps and growing rapidly (over 9,000 apps were added last month alone!). Most apps are free but there are paid apps as well (most of which have a free version too), although very few cost more than £1 or £2. (You get a refund too if you uninstall, which is nice!)

Admittedly, there are more apps for iPhone at the moment - this is to be expected given the fact that its been around for longer than Android. However, most predictions see the Android Market catching up within the next year. A slight drawback of not having the all-seeing eye controlling exactly what apps are allowed, means that anyone can write and submit an app to the Market. This means that there is a lot of crap. And Google do need to put some work into making the market more easily searchable (ie. filtering by certain criteria etc.) but even as it stands, it's pretty easy to find what you want. And most things are very well catered for. Most of the big iPhone apps have an Android equivalent, either created by the same people or an equivalent alternative. I have yet to come across anything I need to do on my phone that isn't catered for by a decent app.

Multi-tasking is a big plus. I frequently jump around from one app to another with the Desire's 1Ghz processor and 576Mb of RAM it's seamless and super-fast. Not that I'd recommend listening to Spotify while playing a first-person racing game mind you - I've tried and while the game was fine, the music did start to stutter a bit.

The camera (5MP with auto-focus, face recognition, touch-screen-to-focus, digital zoom, and flash) is pretty good - much better than any other phone cameras I've used - the quality is perfectly adequate for viewing on a computer screen without it looking like its come from a phone. You can upload directly to Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, or send via email or bluetooth direct from the photos app - which links directly into the camera, so you can have a photo on the web within 30 seconds of taking it. It also does HD video although I've not tried it yet, but the reviews all say its good.

That's enough for now I think. I was going to save this and come back to it later, but I think if I do that I might not get round to it, so I'll just post this as is, accepting that I've not covered half of what there is to talk about.

http://lifehacker.com/5511793/make-qr-codes-in-a-jiffy-with-googl

Pimp my Firefox

Well, my week in Chrome was nice, but as I posted on Friday, it just didn't quite live up to what I wanted from a web browser. Yes, the statistics certainly seem to show Chrome as the winner in the performance stakes at least, but if you take into account other factors like the level of extension support, customisability, memory usage, etc. the results could look pretty different and, as I concluded in my previous post, it's these very things that have led me to revert back to using Firefox, at least for now.

So, being the inveterate extension-junkie that I am, here's an update on my latest browser configuration.

(I should point out that even though I have a lot of extensions installed, I'm quite particular about them. For a start, they must be stable, have good reviews and ratings and a good track record of usage. Secondly, I only install extensions that provide some specific functionality that I particularly need or want.I'm not into just downloading things for fun; I'm looking to make my web browser look and work the way I want it to. And finally, I'm always mindful of the need to constantly keep an eye on what I have installed, get rid of it if I don't make much use of it or it doesn't work properly, switch to something else if another extension does it better, and regularly update everything. I realise there's a performance hit with having a lot of extra stuff installed, so I'm always trying to keep a balance between browser enhancement and speed.)

Currently installed extensions:

Adblock Plus
Speeds up browsing and makes pages cleaner by blocking ads from loading and displaying.

AFOM
Automatically recovers memory leakage to make Firefox run faster

AVG Safe Search
This gets installed automatically with AVG antivirus. Some people find it annoying, and while it can be removed (using a hack, admittedly) I find it reassuring to have that extra level of security.

ColorZilla
As a web developer I find this one of the most useful extensions. An unobtrusive statusbar icon gives you an eyedropper to select (and copy) any colour off web pages, along with the option (highly configurable) of displaying various bits of info such as element name, size, DOM path etc to the element you're hovering over in the statusbar.

CookieSafe
Lots of options to configure how Firefox handles cookies. Personally I disable all cookies by default, then only allow the sites I trust and visit regularly. If I make a one-off visit to a site and need cookies, I can enable them temporarily just for that visit or session.

Download Statusbar
Replaces the downloads window with a neat, configurable statusbar.

Firebug
Loads of web developer tools. I've added the 'Inspect element' icon (spectacles) to my toolbar for quick checking of information relating to page elements.

Gmail Manager
Until recently I was using GMail Notifier, but this one just seems a little nicer with a few more features.

goo.gl lite
Adds a toolbar button that, when clicked, automatically copies a shortened version of the URL (using Google's new URL shortening service) to the clipboard. Essential if you're using a Twitter client that doesn't have URL shortening built in (which would obviously be ideal, but you can't win them all!)

Google Gears
Required in Firefox for various Google applications/features.

Greasemonkey
I don't make a huge amount of use of this at the moment except for Flickr - there are a bunch of really nice userscripts that make browsing and using Flickr so much better (Flickr Multi Group Sender, Flickr Auto Page, Flcirk Group Pool Admin - Warn + Delete, Flickr Tag Autocomplete, Flcirk Filter Hearts, FlickrZoom2)

Hide Menubar
Until recently I was using Personal Menu, but that just has far too many options and is unnecessarily complex. This extension achieves exactly what I need so much more simply - auto-hides the menu bar and lets you temporarily display it by pressing Alt. I've also customised Friefox's toolbars so everything else is displayed on a single toolbar - nav buttons, followed by location bar (which doubles as a search bar with the aid of keyword searches and a config tweak - see http://kb.mozillazine.org/Location_Bar_search), followed by a few extra icons (goo.gl lite, Web Developer and Firebug inspect element buttons), followed by the bookmarks toolbar (which I limit to one or two items I need quick and frequent access to (To save space I've deleted the title if they've got a decent favicon. If I need more than one or two items here I'll put them inside a folder so there's just a single folder icon on the toolbar itself)).


Html Validator
Essential for web developers - a statusbar icon shows the validation status of every web page, including local ones, and clicking it opens the source code with the validation report.

JSView
Provides quick access to javascript files used by the current page.

KeyScrambler
See my last post - its a nice extra layer of security but I'm in two minds about it, as it is a bit laggy.

Locationbar Limit
Lets you show more items in the location bar dropdown, so saving scrolling if you're searching through a lot of results.

Locationbar2
Emulates a feature built in to Chrome, where the domain of the current page is highligheted, and URL segments are selectable.

MeasureIt
Statusbar icon which, when clicked, allows you to drag out a rectangular box/ruler over any area of the current page, showing the dimensions.

NoScript
I use this in a similar way to CookieSafe - set all scripts as blocked by default, then only allow scripts on sites I trust and visit regularly, then just temporarily for other sites. You have fine-grained script control so if you don't want to allow scripts for a particular advertising service included in a page you don't need to.

OpenBook
Enhances Firefox's built-in bookmark management by allowing customization of the 'Add bookmark' dialogue, such as automatically opening the bookmark tree, etc.

Organize Status Bar
Essential if you have as many extensions as me!!! Lets you organize what icons are displayed and where.

Resizeable Textarea
Forces all textareas to be resizeable.

Speed Dial
Create a new tab/start page showing thumbnail links to all your favourite sites. You can have multiple tabs as well if you like (I have one for 'Work' and one for 'Personal'). Loads of customisation options.

Unsorted Bookmarks Folder Menu
Adds a link to Firefox's 'Unsorted Bookmarks' folder in the  bookmarks menu. Simples!

Vacuum Places Improved
Optimizes Firefox's places.sqlite database - really makes a big difference to browser speed if your history file is quite large.

Web Developer
Absolutely essential for web developers. End of.

Xmarks
Bookmark backup/sync. A million times better than Google Bookamarks.

Yoono
I've only just discovered this so it's still 'on trial' but it's an integrated social networking sidebar for Firefox. Seems pretty good at the moment and I think I prefer this to loading a separate app like Digsby when I've got the browser opan all day anyway.

Finally, here's a screenshot of how my browser looks:

Google Chrome - week 1

Well, it's been just over a week since I decided to try using Google Chrome as my main web browser. How have I found it? Will I stick with it?

To be honest still I'm torn between Chrome and Firefox. There are pros and cons to both. Here's  a quick list of where each browser scores, from a fairly non-technical perspective (i.e. I'm sure there all sorts of things 'under the hood' that could affect the comparison but which I don't know enough about):

Chrome

• Significantly faster startup time
• Separate processes for each tab and extension (if one crashes you can carry on using the browser)
• Memory is periodically 'cleaned' to prevent memory usage constantly creeping up (although it uses more memory overall)
• Looks nicer!
• Web search integrated into address bar (although FF similar, though not quite so good, with search keywords)
• Searching browsing history searches page content, not just titles
• Generally, Google apps (which I use a lot of - who doesn't?) work better with Google browser

Firefox

• Uses less memory overall (although memory leaks do tend to mean it increases over time)
• Several key extensions not available for Chrome (yet), e.g. Web Developer, Colorzilla, NoScript, CookieSafe
• Better bookmark management (e.g. tags)
• Sorting options for history
• Right-click to view images/background images (have to open developer console in Chrome)
• Toolbars are customizable (particularly important with extensions - Chrome's extensions all get added into the main toolbar and move around randomly! Plus FF has the added advantage in this respect of a status bar for extension icons etc.)
• As a colleague pointed out yesterday, from a web development and browser compatibility point of view, Firefox is the most widely used browser (if you treat each major version of IE as different browsers) so it makes more sense to use it as your primarily browser when developing sites.

So, the jury is split! I expect Chrome to catch up with Firefox in many of these areas, although having said that, I know that the Firefox developers are already looking into many of the things where Chrome has taken the lead, such as separate processes, better search integration, etc. for future versions, so nothing is a foregone conclusion!

Google Chrome extensions

This week I finally made the big switchover from Firefox to using Google Chrome as my web browser of choice. I'd tried several times before, but the lack of extension support in Chrome put me off as I'm a bit of an extension junkie, as those of you who know me will testify!

However, with extensions now supported in the Beta version of Chrome and soon to be in the main release version too, I decided to make a serious attempt at switching over. I was already convinced about the browser itself - it wins hands down on the speed and stability stakes, compared to Firefox which, while it started out so well, has just got slower and clunkier as time has gone on (partly a result of all those extensions, but by comparison Chrome hasn't seemed to be affected too noticeably yet).

Admittedly, Chrome's extension gallery is still in its infancy. There are a number of things that are not yet catered for and many of the existing extensions are still in the early stages of development and quite buggy. However, there seems to be just about enough to work with and obviously over time things will improve.

I started out by making a list of all the addons I've got installed in Firefox and then searched for equivalent Chrome extensions.

Here's the list as it stands at the moment:

Firefox	Chrome
Adblock Plus	AdBlock
AFOM Addon	-	Not needed in Chrome as memory leaks are not such an issue
AVG Safe Search	WOT	However, Chrome's built-in security features make the need for this less urgent.
Colorzilla	-	One of my most-used FF extensions. However, the various functions are fairly well covered by Pendule and Chrome's built-in developer tools.
CookieSafe	-	This is one that I'd really like to see ported over to Chrome as soon as possible (I'd do it myself if I knew how!). In FF I disabled all cookies and then just enabled them on a per-site basis only when absolutely required, and temporarily unless for trusted sites I visited regularly.
Download Statusbar	-	No need for this as Chrome already shows download status in a fairly unobtrusive way.
Fasterfox Lite	-	Chrome is already a lot faster so no need for this at the moment.
Firebug	Firebug Lite	However, Chrome's built-in developer tools provide all the Firebug-like functionality I need at the moment.
GMail Notifier	Google Mail Checker Plus	The Chrome extension is actually much nicer than the FF one, although still has a few bugs.
Greasemonkey	-	It is possible to enable userscripts in Chrome, but as the only Greasemonkey scripts I used in FF were for Flickr, I've managed to find Chrome extensions for Flickr that do most of what I want anyway. Still, a standard way to add userscripts would be handy.
Html Validator	-	There are several validators for Chrome, including HTML Validator, but none currently works with locally hosted pages, like the FF one, which is a shame.
JSView	-	I never used this all that much anyway, but occasionally it was handy for quick access to scripts. The lack of an equivalent for Chrome is not a big deal though.
KeyScrambler	KeyScrambler Pro	Although I do like the added layer of security this provided, I did often find it a bit slow meaning I'd sometimes find myself typing garbled text into the browser. You can use the Pro version of KeyScrambler which works with a whole host of desktop applications, but I'm not about to fork out for it at the moment,
NoScript	-	Like CookieSafe, this is another one I'd really like to see ported to Chrome. FlashBlock provides some of the functionality (blocks Flash and Silverlight) but not all.
OpenBook	-	Chrome's bookmarks don't seem to have a tagging mechanism so this is fairly redundant. It would be nice to see more bookmark features in Chrome though.
Organize Statusbar	-	A must if like me you had so many extensions installed. Chrome doesn't have a status bar, but it would be extremely useful to have some way of customising and managing extension icons in the toolbar and address bar as currently there's no way to arrange them and they swap order for no reason every time you open the browser!
Personal Menu	-	See above. Thankfully Chrome has a much more minimal interface which minimises the need to mess around with the built-in menus etc.
Profile Switcher	-	I'm not sure if Chrome even supports profiles yet. This was handy at home with my wife and I using the same browser. However, as I've just bought her a netbook this won't be a problem in the future!!
Resizeable Textarea	Always Resize	Chrome supports resizing textareas by default anyway, but this extension makes even locked textareas resizeable.
Speed Dial	Speed Dial	Not quite as feature-rich as the FF one yet, but nonetheless does the job.
Split Browser	-	Never made too much use of this anyway, but Chrome's nifty ability to drag a tab out into a new window makes this less necessary anyway.
Unsorted Bookmarks Folder Menu	-	Not needed due to the different way Chrome handles bookmarks. It was a bit of a hack for Firefox anyway!
Vacuum Places Improved	-	FF got slower and slower the more pages were stored in it's history. However, even after importing my browsing history from FF into Chrome, it's still incredibly fast, so no need for this.
Web Developer	-	Number one on the wishlist of FF extensions for Chrome. Chris Pederick is apparently looking into the possibility but its a complex extension so could take a while even if he does decide to give it a crack! However, Chrome's built-in developer tools do cover a lot of the more useful functions, and Pendule has a few more, so its not the end of the world.
XMarks Bookmark Sync	XMarks Bookmark Sync

In addition, I've found a number of additional Chrome extensions that are proving (or look) useful, either in covering some of the fucntionality of one or more of my old Firefox extensions, or providing other functionality:

Fittr Flickr
Facebook To-Go with Instant Notifications
RSS subscription extension
Flickr Gallery Plus!
Chromed Bird
Google Calendar Popout
AutoPager Chrome
Slideshow
Google Apps Shortcuts

Speeding up Firefox

If you use Firefox and have found it slow starting up or laggy typing into the address bar, install the oddly named 'Vacuum Places Improved' add-on from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13878.

It adds a little icon to the status bar allowing you to defragment Firefox's places.sqlite database file with a single click- that's the file that holds all the information about your browsing history etc.

I've installed it in FF on all the computers I use and noticed a considerable improvement. On my laptop the places.sqlite file was initially 25Mb and after 'vacuuming' its 15Mb. On my desktop, Firefox had almost ground to a halt, often taking over a minute to start up, and when you clicked into the address bar it took around 10 seconds before you could actually type anything! After 'vacuuming', FF starts up in 10 seconds and typing into the address bar is fine.

I highly recommend this if you use Firefox and notice any performance issues. Obviously its not going to solve memory leak (FF's other big problem) but it's a big help nonetheless.

Just to explain - the extension doesn't delete anything, it just optimises the file that holds all the data so that that data can be found more quickly.

You can set the statusbar icon to be hidden and only reappear a certain number of days from the last 'vacuum' to remind you to run it, or it can set to automatically run every x number of days.

Changing the document root in XAMPP

I know this has been covered many times before but I've found myself Googling for this info a number of times now and thought if I wrote it here then at least I'd know where to look next time!

After installing XAMPP on Windows, the document root, by default, is set to C:/xampp/htdocs (that is, if you installed xampp into the root of the C: drive).

In this particular case I wanted to change the root directory to the sites directory in my Dropbox (C:/Documents and Settings/[username]/My Documents/My Dropbox/sites/)

To do this, open xampp/apache/conf/httpd.conf and edit the 'DocumentRoot' setting (line 188 in the version I have) to the required path (as above). Several lines below where it says "This should be changed to whatever you set DocumentRoot to" (line 215) change the Directory path to the same thing.

Open xampp/php/php.ini and edit the 'doc_root' setting (line 804) to be the same path as above.

Save both files and restart apache. This should do the trick.

UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, I'd forgotten about my MySQL data. To move the MySQL data into Dropbox:

Open xampp/mysql/bin/my.ini and:
- under [mysqld]:
- change datadir (line 30) to the full path to the mysql data directory on Dropbox.
- change log_error (line 45) to the same path as above PLUS '/mysql.err'.
- change general_log_file (line 48) to the same path as above PLUS '/mysql.log'.
- change slow_query_log_file (line 50) to the same path as above PLUS '/mysql-slow.log'.
- below where it says "Uncomment the following if you are using InnoDB tables"
- change innodb_data_home_dir (line 137) to the same path as above.
- change innodb_log_group_home_dir (line 139) to the same path as above.

Move contents of xampp/mysql/data into the new mysql data directory in Dropbox.

Running SQL queries within query result loops in CodeIgniter

This took me a while to figure out but it's pretty obvious really. Initially I thought I'd have to run row-specific queries in the view itself (inside the results loop) but the solution is just to change where the result 'processing' happens from the view to the controller, allowing you greater control over what gets passed to the view in the first place.

Where you'd do something like this in plain old PHP:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT value FROM table");

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)):

    mysql_query("SELECT id FROM table WHERE field='" . $row['value'] . "'");

endwhile;

in CodeIgniter you put the following code in your controller function:

$query = $this->Model->function($params);

$result = $query->result(); 
$foo = array();    

foreach ($result as $id => $object): 

    foreach ($object as $key => $value): 

        $foo[$id][$key] = $value;
    endforeach;
    $foo[$id]['bar'] = $this->function($params); 

endforeach; 

$this->data['foo'] = $foo;

$this->load->view('baz', $this->data);

then in the view:

foreach ($foo as $key => $row):

    print $row['item1'];

    print $row['item2'];

    print $row['bar'];

endforeach;

Basically, instead of passing the result of the main query direct to the view and looping through it there, you loop through the query results in the controller instead, and build up a two-dimensional associative array of results, to which you can add additional row-specific query results. Then in the view you just loop through your custom array.

Update:  You need to initialise the array ($foo = array()) before the foreach loop in the controller, otherwise if the query returns an empty result you'll get an error!

Speed Dial + Foxmarks? Would be nice!

I use Foxmarks to synchronise my Firefox bookmarks across all the computers I use (it also works with IE and Safari now I believe) and it's great. You can create different profiles as well which you can switch between as required, so when I'm at work I use my 'work' profile with access to all my work-related bookmarks. At home I use my 'home' profile which has all my non-work bookmarks. But if I'm working from home as I was today I can easily switch profiles so I have all my work bookmarks at home! This includes all my bookmarklets which is great.

I also use Spped Dial which is a great and highly configurable way of having quick access to my most-visited sites whenever I launch a new window/tab. It's a bit like Chrome's dashboard but you can define which sites you want to show rather than it just displaying whatever you've been looking at a lot recently, which is better I think (the Speed Dial way I mean!).

But working from home today made me think how nice it would be if my Speed Dial 'home page' worked the same way as my bookmarks - so I could switch to my work Speed Dial page instead of my home one. At the moment there is no way to do this (unless there is some clever clogs way of doing it using Dropbox etc.).

Of course, with the steady march of Google towards world domination we'll probably have everything in the browser synced through Google in a couple of years - albeit using Google Chrome....

Run IE6, 7 and 8 on the same machine

Note to self:

http://blog.case.edu/jeremy.smith/2008/03/07/ie_6_7_and_8_running_on_same_machine

Presumably it will still work with the final version of IE8 when it gets released.

(As as aside, I've been using Tredosoft's MultipleIEs for a couple of years now and it works pretty much flawlessly. Extremely handy for testing purposes.)

Taming the information overflow

News feeds and activity streams are becoming ever more popular as the amount of online information we share and consume grows.

I am starting to wonder, however, where all this is going. The amount of information is only going to keep increasing, and at some stage it is going to become too much.

Do I really want - or need - to know exactly what every person I've ever met is doing or thinking right now? Sure, to a certain extent it can be useful and/or interesting, but there must come a point at which it is actually more of a distraction.

There is only so much information we can take in. Filtering of content is a partial solution, but only partial.

It will be interesting to see what happens!