google « Notes from a small field

Google plating

September 2, 2008 at 22:15 | In Ones and Zeros | 6 Comments
Tags: browser, chrome, firefox, google, internet-explorer, opera, web

This post is brought to you from the new Google Chrome browser.

I’m sure there will be some in depth and deeply technical reviews about Chrome before long, if there aren’t already that is, but here are my first few thoughts:

So far Chrome looks reasonably solid- solid enough to risk writing a blog post on even! I certainly like the sound of tabs in separate processes, given the number of times a website has taken out all my tabs. I usually have far too many tabs open I admit… but I’ve not yet caused the entire internet to crash as a result!

Playing with the about:memory page was interesting as well, especially with other browsers listed with Chrome. Interestingly Opera 9.5 was using less memory despite having more tabs open. Both Opera and Chrome have gone for a cut down interface, which I prefer, although there does seem to be a fairly random split of menu items between Chrome’s “Control the current page” and “Customise and control Google Chrome” menus. I imagine a lot of time was spent deciding what should go in each… oh well.

It’s great to have another browser to spice things up, and I love the new tab page- Chrome will most definitely be staying installed, along with Opera, Firefox and IE!

Update: Some thoughts from other people:

On the Chrome bandwagon
More history rewrites
The Neuromancers of Google and their Burning Chrome
Google Chrome Tips and Pointers (but no tip for uninstalling, which would be useful!)

Extra, extra! A roundup and review of the media hype on The Register:

House blogject/tweetject experiments

May 3, 2008 at 23:34 | In Ones and Zeros | 1 Comment
Tags: blog, blogject, curl, CurrentCost, google, graphs, house, mtsend, tweetject, twitter, wordpress

Now that I have my home server pretty much sorted, I’ve had a chance to start experimenting with a few ideas for what to actually do with it.

It’s already publishing CurrentCost data, along with several others, but it’d be nice to do a bit more. One thing that is definitely on my to do list is to hook it up to Twitter. Andy’s house uses Twitter to communicate, which is getting some interest. It’s easy to twitter something from a home server, although not quite so easy to make it interesting, or at least not way too talkative and repetitive. Plus Twitter is a fantastic way to get text message alerts from your house (and a million and one other uses).

The other thing I’d quite like is a nice web based dashboard to replicate some of the information on the CurrentCost screen, but it’s only a tiny home server and, while it does run XAMPP, there’s not much memory left afterwards. It would also be kind of nice to avoid any security holes by not running my own web server. I’ve done a few experiments and it looks like WordPress is the perfect answer: I’ve added a House page which I can update with Google graphs using mtsend.py. The alternative would be to use new posts each time, which would be great to keep a history but that would probably fill up my weblog with even less interesting stuff than is already here!

Quite pleased with the results so far. Now I just need to actually automate some of it!

Google wide web

March 24, 2008 at 00:24 | In Life, the Universe, and Everything, Ones and Zeros | 9 Comments
Tags: google, internet, Phorm, Warwick, web

Earlier today I was reminded that working with computers all day gives you a different view of the internet to, for want of a better word, normal people! For instance, I don’t use Google to find sites I already know about, preferring URLs or del.icio.us, while I think to some people Google is the internet. They use Google, and feel lucky, when they are returning to a previous site. I was also asked why Google doesn’t always find the right site- they were looking for a hotel and the search results included the one they were looking for, along with hotels of the same name in different places. Targeting the right search results to people, instead of adverts, might be interesting, if we’re going to be watched anyway that is.

Later in the day Google failed me as I was unable to find anything about some artwork from my time at Warwick (it was a traffic cone and plastic pipe triffid-like sculpture which appeared in different locations around campus each day – brilliant – but can’t find it anywhere using google, or on flickr, hmmm). Still, it seems that Warwick blogs and I did stumble across a review of something I was thinking of getting for a spot of DIY home automation. Perhaps random Google search results are the modern day alternative to reading tea leaves?

Would the real James Taylor please stand up

September 28, 2007 at 20:19 | In Life, the Universe, and Everything | 6 Comments
Tags: Blogs, google, hursley, jamestaylor, moo, technorati

I had a bit of a tour of mail rooms in Hursley on my way out of work today. For a brief moment I thought I had received my first real post, delivered directly to my mail point, in about two years but then I spotted it had been via my old mail point. As it turns out, it had been to the right mail point in the first place… for one of the three other James Taylors in Hursley! Unlike a few bits of post I’m still waiting for (I hope the Moo cards arrive at the right place!) the right James Taylor should pick up his letter on Monday.

Having a ~~common~~ popular name can be interesting. As well as the three James Taylors at the same site, there are plenty more in the same company. Makes for some entertaining email exchanges. Not only that, but I quite often have lunch with one of the James Taylors… and he lives in the same village!

Then there’s the internet. Talk of googling yourself always makes me chuckle- try finding me! Since starting this blog I’ve been taking more of an interest in Technorati and it looks like us James Taylors are keen bloggers as well!