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After a couple of days of heavy use of Google Chrome, the annouances have started.

Having a link in the page’s HTML source ending with a special character causes the while browser to crash. So much for only the tab crashing.

The bigger and more annoying issue is the fact that I have received the blue screen of death on 3 ocassions. The message seemed like there was an IRQ conflict. Something to do with IRQL not equal. The only thing common to all 3 occurances is that I was using IE and Chrome simultaneously. And both had some sort of media being played - either YouTube videos or forced video ads. At least on one ocassipn I was listening to Pandora.

I also noticed that Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer has become slow and sluggish after installing Chrome. Go figure.

This is the first post from my mobile phone.

So, I managed to snag Google Chrome 8 minutes before noon PDT (the official release time). The link was live, and I downloaded it in a flash. Currently, people are reporting that the server is under extreme load and they are not able to download it.

Initial thoughts:

- The installation imported my bookmarks automatically without my permission. It only notified me. I’m disappointed with that. If it was a confirmation, it didn’t follow the usability standards.

- The browser opened up quick, unlike most others which take time.

- The rendering of pages was quick, but the fonts on many pages were not smooth - they had jagged edges and were a strain to read. I checked sites like cnn.com, cnbc.com and even Google’s search engine. I’m using Windows XP SP3, on a Dell Latitude D820 with a resolution of 1280×800

- It was a bit difficult to find the task manager built-in to the browser.

- The Acid 2 test passed. The Acid 3 test failed, with a score of 61/100.

- Incognito browsing is a cool feature, similar to InPrivate browser of IE8

- I opened 100 tabs of the default page and it opened quick, and used only 75 MB of memory, and barely any noticeable CPU usage.

- DNS Prefetching to load pages faster is a nice option, but you might want to disable it if you have privacy concerns. Anything to do with prefetch has to be disconcerting for privacy advocates.

- The security information (when clicking on the yellow lock icon (indicating SSL) ) is user-friendly and easy to understand.

- If a popup is blocked, a nice notification is shown.

- Some of the plugins are not available for this browser, but that is understandable.

Overall, all the features have been borrowed from different places (as indicated in their comic strip), barring the built-in task manager, which I haven’t seen in any browser, current or BETA.

In my opinion, this was a premature release (probably to save themselves from the early comic book leak). However, this is definitely a Firefox killer. As a web developer, I hope this does kill Mozilla Firefox, otherwise it would one more to support, which is getting annoying with the growing popularity of Apple’s Safari to deal with as well. Internet Explorer 8 needs special handling from IE7, which in turn needed special handling from IE6.

TechieLife turned 1 on 28th August. It has been a quiet year, with only one post - on why the iPhone was a hype phone. The article generated a lot of views, but not many comments (I’m rather disappointed with that). Since then, Apple has release the iPhone 3G, which is so much better. Despite the reports of problems with the 3G service and  third-party applications crashing, the iPhone 3G is the best celll phone ever to hit the market.

TechieLife has been dormant for 9 months now. This has been due to a number of factors, which I shall not get into.

Sine my last post on why the iPhone is hyped, Apple has release an iPhone 3G, which has addressed all my concerns - GPS, Corportate Exchange, 3G, third-party applications. I acquired the 3G iPhone, and will post more details in subsequent posts.

Since the Motorola RAZR, no phone has generated so much buzz as the iPhone. Congratulations to Steve Jobs & Co. for once again showing off their marketing skills and generating so much hype. Ordinarily, when one thinks of a two-year data plan contract with a cellular carrier, they are not willing to spend much on the phone itself. Not only does the iPhone aka Jesusphone cost an arm and a leg, but you would have to sell your kidney to pay 2 years worth of AT&T subscription fees. If you travel a lot internationally, add roaming fees to that and you’re not left with much.

So, why did people spend so much on the iPhone? I guess it’s the cool factor. The phone has an attractive user interface (credit must be given where due - iPhone probably has one of the best interfaces I’ve seen on a mobile device), and consumers seem to like things which look good, irrespective of whether there is a better alternative or not. OK, so the iPhone has touch-navigation and during Steve Jobs’ demo of the phone, the sliding of his finger over the display of the phone to unlock it generated so many ooh’s and aah’s. Come on people, you can do better than that.

In my opinion, this is a phone only for the youth. However, most of the youth can’t really afford this phone. Only the corporate folks can afford the phone (and the AT&T special plan), which is an irony because the iPhone is not very effective in a corporate setting. You can’t sync with Microsoft Exchange (used by majority of companies). You can’t create or edit documents, presentations and charts. You can’t install custom 3rd party applications. (If you attempt to, Apple’s next software update will simply disable your phone and brick it … if you ask me, this is unethical and someone should sue Apple for tampering with their property (phone)). That is why I prefer Windows Mobile phones. Even the Open Handset Alliance initiative is good for the industry. Apple and Steve Jobs, on the other hand, still remains a very closed group of people - not good for industry.

So much for exclusivity - so many people own iPhones these days. I have a T-mobile Dash (aka HTC Excalibur aka HTC S620), which probably has fewer units sold. That makes my phone more exclusive than the iPhone, doesn’t it? And I have my kidneys intact. iPhone doesn’t support 3G (which is basically speeds of 1Mbps over the cellular network). You are stuck with crappy EDGE speeds - 200 Kbps. Why bother with YouTube at such speeds? The iPhone keyboard isn’t as accurate as advertised. There are always jumbled characted. Also, the portrait to landscape auto conversion happens only with the browser and YouTube - and it doesn’t work if the iPhone is placed flat on a table (go figure).

Here is another fact - the iPhone is not the first touch phone. The HTC Touch is the first touch phone. I particularly like their cube feature. The iPhone is limited to a single screen menu. HTC Touch’s menu is a cube. You can flip its sides to view each face of the cube (like rotating a cube with your thumb). Today, HTC touch officially announced the HTC Touch Cruise - http://www.htc.com/product/03-product_htctouch_cruise.htm

This phone is bound to be much, much better than the iPhone. It has a 400MHz processor, with 256MB/128MB ROM/RAM with a microSD card expansion slot. It is interesting that the iPhone’s processor speed and memory details are not published (other than the 4GB/8GB flash memory). This phone supports HSDPA, a 3G protocol (upto 3.6Mbps download speeds). Oh, and if that didn’t capture your attention, this will - the phone has an inbuilt GPS. This phone is definitely on my radar.

Read the full HTC Touch Cruise press release at http://www.europe.htc.com/z/pdf/press/HTCTouchCruise_PressRelease_071112a.pdf (Note: PDF file. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Here is a small video showing a couple of features:

Welcome to TechieLife. So, what is TechieLife? One thing for sure, it’s a blog launched in late August 2007.

A blog is the commonly-used shortened version of ‘weblog’ (which was split to ‘we blog’ ). As opposed to traditional news web sites where content layout is important, blogs are chronologically ordered entries that the author ‘posts’ periodically and appear in that order.

Coming back to TechieLife, what this this blog about?

• The life of a techie? (Techie is the term used for a person who is highly familiar with computer & digital technology. Note: Not to be confused with ‘geek’ or ‘nerd’)
• How to get a life if you’re a techie?
• How technology can be useful in life?
• All of the above?

Well, this blog is focussed more on the relationship between technology and life. And by technology, I mean computer & digital technology (and this is true throughout the blog). Although, I might touch on the first two topics, since I’m a techie myself (again, not a geek or nerd )

For centuries, it has been widely accepted that the three necessities of life are food, clothing & shelter. In my opinion, we not have a fourth essential - technology. Just think - can you survive without technology? Can we go for a week without our cellular phones, computers, Internets (not a typo), Cable & Satellite television? If you ask me, my answer is an emphatic NO! Not too long ago, there was a Blackberry outage for a few hours. Businesses that depended on the Blackberry started to get nervous. It is reported that a few individuals had to see their therapist.

I intend for this blog to be interactive. Rather than forcing readers to 100% read what I write, I will look to write what my readers want to read. And the best way to indicate this is via the comments section in each post.

OK, enough about the blog. Who is the author?

Hi, my name is Aditya and I maintain this blog. I am a software engineer in Los Angeles, California, USA with a Masters degree in Software Engineering from the University of Southern California (Go Trojans!!).

I’ve been active with computers since the age of 4, and have been on the Internet for the last 10 years (ever since it was introduced in India, where I was at that time). I first started blogging in April 2001. In addition to blogging, I have developed web sites, and written software. I am an early adopter of cool Internet technology (what I find cool may not be cool to others, and vice-versa), and advise people on almost anything related to computers.

I hope that this blog enables me to reach out to more people and help them make full use of this new fourth essential of life - technology!

I can be contacted at aditya [{@}] techielife [.] com (I specified my email in a weird fashion so that spam bots do not pick up my email address).

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