Paul Merrill | Shiny Bits of Life

December 23, 2009December 19, 2009

A very tiny Christmas gift

Google Chrome.

If you don’t have it yet, go here for the free download. It’s a web browser. A fast one. Now available for Mac too!

Details, for those who are into this sort of thing…

My Comments: It’s way faster than Safari. Chrome imported my extensive bookmarks seamlessly – unlike Firefox or any other browser! Firefox is still my default browser… I like to root for the little guy – and also I’m just used to the Firefox work flow.

SmallDog’s comments: Chrome is unique in that each tab runs as its own process. If you’ve ever had Safari quit unexpectedly because one of your windows or tabs encountered a situation it couldn’t handle, you’ll appreciate this feature of Chrome. If one tab encounters a situation it doesn’t know how to handle, only that tab will quit. The other open tabs will be unaffected. This leap is is similar to the protected memory in Mac OS X vs. the shared memory of the classic OS. Remember the day when one application crashing meant you had to restart the whole computer?

While developer previews were available some time ago, this is the first public beta of Chrome. It is quite fast, and I haven’t been able to make it crash yet. There are plenty of benchmarking articles out there, but I’m not prepared to declare any browser fastest until Chrome is no longer a beta. With Google’s tendency to keep products in perpetual beta, when or if that happens is uncertain.

Mac users: Intel only.

December 22, 2009December 20, 2009

Lest ye buy too much

estate-sale There was an estate sale in our neighborhood a few weekends ago. “Everything must go!” (An estate sale is a fancy way of saying the people moving didn’t want to hassle with selling everything, so they hired a company to do it for them. Or worse yet, they were simply unable to sell everything, due to poor health – or worse.)

I thought it was highly appropriate that someone had placed this small plaque in the front and center of a prominent table full of lovely nick-nacks for sale. The people moving out of the home (to a retirement community or assisted living home, by my guess) realized that they could not take it all with them. In fact, the estate sale agent informed me that as of two o’clock that afternoon, it would all be hauled away to the dump.

December 21, 2009December 29, 2009

Christmas Lights and Museum

englew-xm-3 englew-xm-2 englew-xm-1 A home in nearly Englewood, Colorado boasts an amazing Christmas display. Many homes do the lights thing. This family has taken it to a new level. They have converted their front yard into a museum.

Elvis is part of some Americans’ Christmases. (I admit to owning some Elvis Presley music – the only album of his in my CD collection is his Christmas compilation.) The dolls? I was not sure what part they played… maybe they were given to the lady of the house when she was a child. I don’t think they had gotten rid of anything they were ever given or bought.

I have not shown their amazing train set. It included a cable car that started on their roof!

A few collection boxes were placed along the pedestrian path. I dutifully inserted a dollar or two. (I am sure the electricity costs must be enormous.)

I am glad that family shared their lives with us in that way.

December 18, 2009December 12, 2009

Christmas wonder, Japanese style

I thought this campaign was funny. Tokyobling highlighted it recently. Isetan’s Christmas site is interesting – a lot of Flash programming went into their creation.

Isetan is a Japanese department store. And their marketing department doesn’t speak English very well.

I was also struck by the fact that no American department store would feature the word “Christmas” in the title of any marketing campaign – too narrow and inclusive. Can you say “Holiday”?

December 17, 2009December 12, 2009

More popular than me

TP-ing My oldest son, Jay, is quite a friendly kid. He was TP’ed a month or two ago.

I was never there when I was in high school.

It’s fun to see personality characteristics skip generations. He inherited my mom’s extroversion. He pegs the scale in that area – way beyond where Heather is or I am. He knows people in every grade at his large high school – and not just the kids in his strata – kids from every caste.

I guess there’s a little of that “wish the best for your kids” thing going on here… I’m very happy that he is so well-liked.

December 15, 2009December 12, 2009

Ignite Boulder 7

Ignite Boulder 7 was last Thursday, December 10th. This was the second Ignite Boulder event I went to and the third Ignite. (Denver was my first.)

In short, this one wasn’t as good as it could have been. No bad reflection on Andrew Hyde, the host. He was trying his hardest to keep things on track. But that was an impossible task.

The bad? Expletives were the main meal rather than the spice. And this time, the crowd had a little too much to drink at the pre-party. Many would yell whenever they felt like it – whether their contribution was helpful or not. The yellers must have been used to the Twitter environment, where it is OK to comment on everything. They forgot the basic difference… Twitter allows people the option to listen. At Ignite Boulder 7, there was no option.

The good? Still a great way to experience some new ideas in a fast-moving, live format.

December 14, 2009December 14, 2009

Tiger Woods – the moment

tiger-w-moment Tiger Woods made some serious mistakes. During various points in his life, he has been at the top of his game, golf. But lately he has been at the bottom of his other game, life.

I was amused when he started turning up in the “Entertainment” section of Google News, rather than the “Sports” section. I guess when celebrities have problems, that becomes entertainment. (Sometimes it’s nice to not be a celebrity.)

By the way, the magazine clipping at left came from my visit to a doctor’s office. I normally do not read Sports Illustrated, but I picked up that copy just to expand my little world. And it worked.

December 11, 2009December 11, 2009

iPhone Screen?

store-facade A few weeks ago, Heather and I had a wonderful date at a fancy restaurant in a fancy mall not far from our home. (We had a fancy coupon working in our favor.) Our arrival was early enough that we spent a little time window shopping.

One store had this glass-and-metal artwork on each of the door posts. I couldn’t help but think of what an iPhone looks like.

December 10, 2009November 29, 2009

Design changes

hard-drives Fashion even dictates the design of hard drives.

Witness my roughly five-year-old drive on the right: red and green lights, angular, hard edges, silver-and-black. A bit cyborg-robot-like.

And on the left, a shiny new Seagate drive: organic, flowing, silver-and-white. Roughly 1/10 the price per gigabyte.

Back when I bought the old model, it was cheaper to assemble one yourself. Now the price of external drives and internal drives is about the same. Good thing! Saved me maybe 20 minutes of precious time.