The browser boots up, and gives me a list of all those addons which need updates. Of course I’d like to have the latest version. Isn’t it why I had it installed there in the first place? If its my unlucky day, even Firefox would need an update. And there is nothing I can do except wait until all those messy updates are done. Wait, there’s more..After the updates comes the installation. Its very frustrating I need to use a browser quickly for 2 minutes and I need to wait for 5 minutes until Firefox is done dressing up itself. And I almost forgot, update the browser and be assured that atleast 3 out of 5 extensions wouldn’t be compatible. Very, very frustrating.
Chrome updates in the background. I don’t care what you download as long as its from a trusted vendor. 5 seconds and its ready to browse the web, anytime of the day. Installing extensions or themes is just instantaneous with chrome, no restart required.
Because at the end of the day, all I want is to have is to browse the internet. Not just keep looking at progress screens of addons getting updated. Now that Chrome has all extensions I use on Firefox, its been days since I’ve clicked on the Firefox browser. I’ve still not decided to uninstall Firefox, but then I’m getting there.

P.S. When I opened Wordpress to write down this post, I was informed that Wordpress needed to update to 2.9.1. Here I go again…

The latest news doing its rounds on the internet is the futuristic looking, theme mockups of the Mozilla Firefox 4 browser. The new theme reminds me of the minimalistic feel adopted by both Chrome and IE8. The wiki states the mock ups are only for brainstorming and might be revised several times before they make it to real browser arena..

But, the interface looks really minimalistic and I loved it so much that I went around searching for a download. And here it is, in all its glory. Download the file, extract, click and drag the *.jar file to your Mozilla addons window.

Thanks to “BoneyardBrew“  and “SoapyHamHocks” @ DeviantART for the awesome theme. Do check out more of his work at his DeviantART gallery!
You would also need to install the Firefox Personal menu extension to complete the look.
Have a cool theme to recommend? Leave a comment!

I got myself a new ASUS EEE PC Seashell netbook last week and have been busy setting it up, customizing it and getting software. Considering that a netbook is meant to run more as an secondary system rather than your only laptop, netbooks are not usually as powerful as laptop (why is why they’re called netbooks, duh..)

Even though they’re called netbooks , its not exactly possible to ensure that they’re always connected to the internet. What if the friendly neighborhood cafe did not have free wifi? And Netbooks without the power of the net are well, just books. Or so we have been lead to believe. Until the making this list that is. My list of perfect software had to make sure it fulfilled two primary needs. Firstly, to be able to run on a machine with limited processing abilities. Secondly, the capability to be used even when you did not have internet access.

Browser: Chrome

Chrome had to be the browser of choice. Light, fast and easy to load. I still am a fan of firefox on my laptop but for my netbook I chose the ultra light chrome with the power of Google Gears. That makes sure I can read my feeds offline, my mail offline, my blog and loads of other Gears compatible stuff offline.

Edited on July 17, 2009: Firefox takes over my netbook. Its impossible not to use firefox especially considering that the internet is the center of your netbook. Plus the font rendering on firefox is much more adaptable to netbooks, which means its much more comfortable to browse the web.

Mail: Thunderbird

I couldn’t find a better mail client than this so I had to surrender to the power of Mozilla. Handles multiple inboxes, junk/spam protection, easy to use. Just like all other good Mozilla products you get the power to use extensions just make sure that you are making an application heavier on a netbook. I just have the minimize to tray extension installed.

Chat: Pidgin

This open source chat agent had to take the cake when it came to chat. Lets me run multiple IM services, light and powerful. Though originally designed to run on linux, Pidgin is now available for windows as well. Pidgin is functional, has an interface that’s the least distracting and comes with a multitude of options to customize it. I use gtalk considering that its the lightest around, considering I do not need multiple IM support.

Office applications: Microsoft Works

I still am using the Microsoft works, but this section might update once I install the Open office. Still considering this section, so do leave your choices in the comments section.

Blogging: Blogdesk

For the first time, I’ve considered the use of an offline blogging tool and after trying quite a few of them, I’ve decided that Blogdesk, albeit its limitations is the winner. Blogdesk has support for most common blogging platforms. I would have recommended the use of Scribefire extension if I were using firefox, but since this is a list, Blogdesk is a blogging tool with a functional interface, but lets you write blogs offline, save them and post them later.

Antivirus: AVG

This is really easy. You would want to keep the resource usage to a minimum and still ensure protection. Stick to AVG . Does a good job and is light on the processor as well.

Desktop enhancements: Launchy

Well, just because its a netbook doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dress up your desktop. How about a OSX styled dock? Rocketdock is only of the fastest and lightest docks out there. I would recommend using Launchy , the keyboard based program launcher especially since it works wonders when the super fast chrome is your default browser.

Trying out blogdesk, an offline blog editor. I usually tend to blog from the WP interface or from scribefire. But now trying out an offline blog editor, just so that I can blog offline and then sync it back whenever I get an internet connection.

That lets me enjoy a coffee at any cafe (no more dependance on wifi!) and blog at the same time! I tried out blogdesk and found it really useful especially on long flights, airport waits (esp. at airports which have exclusive tie ups with specific internet providers)

The latest version of your Firefox is now out! I’ve been using firefox ever since it was pheonix and I never had complaints. So I guess I wouldn’t come up with any right now!
Firefox 3.5 makes browsing faster. And adds a lot of minor/major functionality tweaks. Makes the awesome bar, even more awesome, and Introduces private browsing at last. But you could wait until all your extensions get upgraded. But most developers have already updated their extensions and you shouldn’t be surprised if most of your popular extensions would move up the upgrade ladder without much trouble.
Site rendering &performance has improved a lot. Read all about their performance upgrades here!
Go here for a complete list of top features.
Click on help > Check for updates on your firefox browser. Or use the link below.

Posted via email from thunderror’s posterous

Geek Chart shows you where you shares most of the content. You can find thunderror’s shared content on twitter, stumbleupon, delicious and loads of other web2.0 sites. Geek chart currently supports a select few of these popular sites and makes a pie chart showing where you share the most and the least. Not surprisingly, twitter comes tops my share list.

Try out your geek chart and let us know where you share…Just sign up and surrender your usernames with the most popular social share sites.

Thunderror’s Geek Chart

Appcelerator’s Titanium is an open source alternative to Adobe AIR to help you build your rich internet apps easily. We first saw Titanium hit the racks of the internet around December. Its three months down the line and at least we think they haven’t made the noise they ought to have generated.

But we haven’t seen as much of Titanium as we should be? There are a few easy things which Appcelerator hasn’t done yet. And correct us if we’re wrong.

1. Average branding. Titanium is a great brand name, but my search on Titanium on Google brings up only one result on the first page which is relevant. Titanium Appcelerator seems to work though!
2. This is something Appcelerator has to do. Write a Wikipedia page. It is after all an open source project which needs users for it to get popular.
3. Get more people to tweet and write about it. We decided to blog about it after getting impressed with the free SDK, awesome tutorials and the wonderful twitter application, Tweetanium.
4. Get more blogs to write about Titanium. Because we really think Lifehacker should have featured Tweetanium. True many have already featured Titanium, like the Readwriteweb blog

The Titanium App is open source and cross platform.  Preview release 2 is now out and adds support to Linux as well. We think open source is the way to go and Titanium is a step in the right direction.
Download the Titanium SDK here and start making your own apps.
Show your support to Titanium by downloading Tweetanium

Follow them here

Do you disagree with the statement that Titanium has branded itself the way it was supposed to? Do you think Titanium has already got its share of fame for the period of time it has been around? Would you be willing to give up on AIR and go open source? Leave your comments!

Using Chrome? Well..I do..since I find it to fast and light and runs as smooth as a browser should. I love my firefox too…but there are certain things which Chrome is good at. And security/privacy is not one of them….

Every install of Google Chrome comes with a unique ID which identifies the user. Removing it is not easy without help… After all..doesn’t Google already know enough about you through your gmails, indexed chats, your browsing and search history, what you buy, your maps, your photos (if you use Picasa) and they already have the earth mapped up to them…

UnChrome promises to do just that, to remove the unique ID (Just don’t forget to close chrome before u do it)…If not anything, atleast their Icon looks cool!

While browsing the web, we do come across pages in other languages…Google translate is one of the best and has been my friend when I encounter such pages. Yahoo’s Babelfish does a decent job as well..

But what if you wanted a lovely web 2.0 interface and just wanted to translate phrases into multiple languages? Support for language auto detect and translate as you type too?

Enter Nice Translator…A smooth clean interface with the use of light shades of green makes you want to translate phrases even if you don’t need them…

That was quite a short post. So, ????? or rather goodbye for now…