chaka chaka

i never pretended to be all cutting-edge techno-geek (although i did spend 5 hours finishing up time hollow in my second sitting) so i’m a little late (it launched in june) to start using the new gmail lab features.

it took ages to find, but i found the labs button – a little green beaker – located at the top right of the gmail screen.

clicking it takes you to the lab settings which you can activate

gmail labs is to be activated  at your own risk. since it’s still in beta, whatever that means to the google team. gmail has been in beta for-freaking-ever.

Gmail engineers come up with new ideas all the time. Gmail Labs is our place to try them out and get your feedback. None of these features are really ready for prime time yet, so they may change, break or disappear at any time.

If (when) a Labs feature breaks, and you’re having trouble getting into your account, there’s an escape hatch — just go to https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0 and Labs will be temporarily disabled.

features listed for my own reference. as of now, i’m using tasks and right-side chat. the rest of the add-ons look like a right waste of time. signature tweak  nad random signature? geez.

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if you (unlike the many cretins) realise that chrome is merely in BETA and would like to try out their latest releases and fixes, install the Google Chrome Channel Chooser software from the dev channel.

install it, and you’ll get this popup. select dev for the cool (and in all probability buggy as hell) builds.

according to cnet:

“Build 1251 fixes bugs with areas including Microsoft’s Silverlight software, tab behavior, video playback with YouTube and other Flash players, and scalable vector graphics, and it suppresses full-text indexing of sites accessed with encrypted Web connections, according to the release notes.”

just click on About Google Chrome and update.

chrome is just google world domination stuff i have to keep up with. have arrived at the conclusion that i can not abandon my firefox (now pimped up with new add-ons to boot).

of course google would come out with a browser and another step closer to world domination (if they haven’t already). being the try-hard wannabe trendy kid that i am, i already have google chrome installed on both home and work pcs.

the first thing you notice is of course google’s trademark clutter-free interface. they’ve also flipped the tabs upwards which is supposed to be a big deal, but i’m having some trouble getting used to it.

since it’s google, you’ expect the uber innovations to jump out anytime and change your life. it isn’t mind-blowing or revolutionary, but it is pretty sweet.

any new tab you open has a grid reminiscent of opera’s displaying your most visited websites. mine so far have been google, bloglines, facebook and youtube. so much for productivity at work, eh?

other things i liked: the magical invisible status bar (which only appears when you hover over links)

the download window (window being a slightly misleading term since it appears within the browser)

chrome won my heart when i found out it caters to my multiple split personalities. The Stalker loves incognito window, which lets you to surf without leaving nasty little crumbs of browser history, search history and cookies. downloads and bookmarks are still logged though, so spare a thought before you save that furry porn, you sicko.

The Geek loves the built-in task manager that lets you view the active processes (in chrome only la ok, don’t expect the browser to take over your pc) and what it’s holding up: memory, cpu and network resources. one article says to click on title bar to call it up, but i’m absolutely bat-like when it comes to finding stuff that’s right in front of my face so i use SHIFT+ESC to call it up instead.

here are some facts and figures i did not make up.

graph from zdnet

scriptnode has subjected chrome to a battering of 6 different benchmark tests which i’m not going to replicate here cos i’m not big enough a geek. all you need to know is that chrome came out harder, better, faster, stronger.

the ever prevalent google humour can be found even in browser commands. *hint hint*

about:blank
about:cache (mapped to view-cache:)
about:dns
about:histograms
about:objects
about:memory
about:plugins
about:stats
about:version
about:network
about:ipc
about:internets

what i would like is for chrome to support my favourite add-ons: Read it Later, StumbleUpon, DownloadHelper, FireFTP, Foxmarks, Delicious and Adblock. remember, kiddies, this is still in BETA and there might be some massive security flaws, so don’t fucking click any damn thing you see.

so download it and try it. or don’t. i’m just going to drag the tabs in and out of my window.

(no chrome for mac yet. booooooo.)

[update: get a portable version of chrome here.]

The ultimate collection of Google tips

1. The best way to begin searching harder with Google is by clicking the Advanced Search link.

2. This lets you search for exact phrases, “all these words”, or one of the specified keywords by entering search terms into the appropriate box.

3. You can also define how many results you want on the page, what language and what file type you’re looking for, all with menus.

4. Advanced Search lets you type in a Top Level Domain (like .co.uk) in the “Search within site of domain” box to restrict results.

5. And you can click the “Date, usage rights, numeric range and more” link to access more advanced features.

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