Insight into my mind for one brief moment: When the title of this post floated into my consciousness after the subject matter beat me upside the head, I then proceeded to start relating it to My Three Sons. Just thought I’d share. There was no point to that particular thought.

Anyways…

So a thought occurred to me a few moments ago: Why do I have three browsers when I only use one?

I could say that it is due to web design work, but we both know that I would be lying then. Well, I know why I have two of them. Firefox is my current browser of choice and Internet Explorer came pre-installed on this operating system (or when I am logged into Kubuntu, Konqueror is the pre-installed). The pre-installed choice is quickly forgotten about. So why do I have a third, unused browser just taking up space? I downloaded Google Chrome at the time because, like smoking, it was the cool thing to do. But then I disengaged from the in crowd, distanced myself from the “I want to think I am non-conformist, but I am really subconsciously just conforming to my idea of nonconformistism to be secure in conforming to something” crowd, and even chided myself for making such a bad after-school-special joke about it being the “cool thing to do”. I  looked at why I actually installed Chrome. It was the interest in how browsing could be changed and made better. I read the comic and was genuinely impressed with some of the ideas that they decided to implement into this new browser. So why am I having to ask myself why I still have it? That’s easy. It’s incomplete. I know several people (including myself) who flocked to Chrome because of its intuitive interface and faster rendering. I tried to switch to it exclusively but kept having to pull this or that up in Firefox because it was easier or there was no plug-in  support for Chrome yet.

Unless you want to go through the trouble of using the Dev Kit, you just can’t mold Chrome into your own functional browser… yet.

They said they were going to be adding the ability to add plug-ins and add-ons (as you can easily do in Firefox), but where is that functionality? Where is the RSS integration? Where are the small things that would allow me to take advantage of this fast rendering and independent threaded beast that I long to be alone with? I still will have Chrome installed and might even jump on it every now and then. I just wish that since some of the code comes from the Mozilla project, I could use my favorite Firefox add-ons and manage plug-ins. Just adding this functionality would have me dropping Firefox as my main browser like it gave me some bad disease. Not that I dislike Firefox. I would just keep it as the mistress from that point.

Guess this kinda turned into a rant about how Google Chrome is taking too long to come of age. Hmm. Gotta try to keep from doing that.

Have Fun

-Mike

A few days ago, I set up my new(ish) Dell Inspirion 1525 to triple boot Windows Vista Home Premium (the pre-installed OS), Windows XP SP3, and Kubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex, a flavor of Linux). Warning: If you are already confused, you may wish to gloss over this post. It may be fairly geek driven.

Being a computer repair wizard in my spare time, I figured it would be good for me to garner some experience on the Vista platform even though I don’t particularly care for it. I enjoy playing around with Linux and Ubuntu flavors just make that transition even easier. I still need XP for compatibility issues on contract work, though. I figure,”Hey! I’ve been multi-booting for several years now. This should be cake to set up.” Well I was wrong. Microsoft has taken something that should be an easy task and tried to make it impossible. Of course I should have expected that. Why wouldn’t I? Because I figure people would actually think before they do things. I’m an optimist. It kills me.

If you’ve ever wanted to set up a multi-boot system: AVOID MICROSOFT AT ALL COSTS!

Note that I hate all caps, but this is the only way for me to show how much I mean that last little part.

Microsoft has no intention of letting anyone boot multiple operating systems, even if it is multiple of their own. I was able to easily re-size the Vista partition and add in Linux. It uses it’s own boot-strap and GRUB boot menu that doesn’t interfere with ntldr. Vista and XP, however, have two DIFFERENT ntldr files that cannot coexist on the same partition though. “Why does this matter?”, you may ask. Well, as I found out over two days of partitioning and installing, even though you create two separate primary installations for your operating systems to inhabit in their hermatic bliss, whatever Windows operating system is not on the first primary partition does not install its version of ntldr on its own partition. Like a fool, it assumes that it is going to be the ONLY possible OS installed and writes it’s ntldr file to the first partition (erasing one that already happens to be there). Oh, but this is an easy fix, right? Yeah, but it is not something that is obvious or really discussed anywhere easy to find out in the cold recesses of cyberspace. The Vista disk has a nice feature that will automatically replace the “corrupt” ntldr file, you just need to remember to open the command line utility from the same disk and copy the XP ntldr over to its own partition first. Then there is still the issue of the boot menu once you get the boot loader file issue sorted out. This is what all the forums already discuss. Never mind the fact that you need a boot loader before the menu can boot to a partition. If you are actually using this post as a guide, I recommend EasyBCD from NeoSmart Technologies. It is free and it worked exactly as I needed.You could try to let the Vista boot disk automatically, but I don’t see you getting anywhere with THAT. Do you?

Of course if you are going to install ANY flavor of Linux, just let GRUB do that dirty work. Worst case scenario there is that you have to use a GRUB editor that is easily found with your package manager to modify your GRUB settings. Just make sure you install your Microsoft stuff FIRST. The Vista disk seemed incompetent at removing third party boot loaders, but the XP disk will easily screw with your GRUB files. If you are not an advanced computer user, I do not recommend getting frustrated on attempting this at all. Just call in some help and ask for lots of pointers along the way!

Nothing – I Want One Of Those.

When you view the above link, be sure to realize the full genius of this. What I REALLY want to know (and comment on) is this: Why must one be fourteen years of age in order to receive or purchase Nothing?! Are there small parts involved that a 12 year old might find dangerous?

If this catches on, it could very well go the way of the pet rock. Wish I had gotten to this one first.