There's some really great news over at Ed's blog, Warfighter. I'm not even going to tell you what it is. You're going to have to go check it out for yourself! ;-)

As always, leave Ed a comment on your visit. Comments are great. It's how we online blogging entities know you care. Because we're not just zippy-zappy electrons. We have feelings too, you know.

...II...

Well, I promised an update about Google Chrome today. Unfortunately, that will have to wait. Of course, this means that by the time I get around to actually writing about it, Google's new browser will be old news and will most likely have already taken over Firefox's number 2 spot in the browser wars.

So why am I having to delay the article? Well, quite simply because I'm having trouble getting it installed. You see, I run Windows via a Virtual Box VM, and it seems that Microsoft is having trouble validating my copy of Windows. (The hardware is virtualized, so they keep thinking that I'm using my copy of Windows on a bunch of different computers.) Of course, the whole validation thing Microsoft makes you go through means that I'm going to have to call MS, explain what's going on, and beg that they will validate my legally purchased piece of software. I've had to do this about 3 times before...and it's just annoying at this point.

Now, I have to get my Windows validated because I need to download the SP2 updates because Google won't allow Chrome to be installed on an unpatched Windows system. Now, I'm not knocking Google on this. Truthfully, I think this is a really good call on their part. Unfortunately, it just means that I can't install their browser to try it out and give my real opinion on it. Hopefully I'll get the Windows weirdness worked out in the next few days.

So, in lieu of a proper write up, here are a few thoughts/concerns/praises I have for Chrome with the strong caveat that I haven't used it:

• It's based on Webkit. This is a good thing. Webkit is most known now for powering Apple's Safari browser. But, it actually started life as KHTML, the rendering engine for KDE's Konqueror browser. Yes, once again, all the good stuff is coming from the Linux side. :) The other reason why I'm glad that Google went with Webkit (instead of Mozilla's Gecko, for instance) is because I have been worried recently about Apple totally taking over and driving the direction of Webkit. They've been pretty slow, for example, in adopting things like the Aria framework (a Mozilla development, but an excellent one) and the audio/video tags I wrote about before. With Google in the bunch, I think we'll see Webkit pulled into a more democratic, standardized stance, especially since Google has already acknowledged a forthcoming Linux version.
• Chrome is Open Source. Bravo, Google! As much as I have liked many Google products in the past, I have simply refused to use them on the basis that they were not truly Open Source. Am I just a FOSS fanatic? Well, yes...but my reasons with avoiding proprietary Google apps are a bit more paranoid, and when you're talking about something like a web browser, my paranoia quadruples. Google is already amassing terrabytes upon terrabytes of my private data through my google searches, gmail, and gtalk use. With Chrome being open sourced, experienced coders can look at the source and actually see what information is being sent to and stored in Google's servers. This makes me feel better about using Chrome--it makes me feel like Google is being upfront about any data gathering they might be doing.
• All the same, I'm probably not going to use Chrome. I'm truthfully really happy with the direction Firefox has been taking. And, if I need a zippy webkit browser...well...that's what Epiphany is for. :)
• One of my concerns about Chrome is what this will do to Mozilla. Firefox has gained a ton of ground these past few years, and I would hate to lose all that to the Google juggernaut.
• However, I do like competition. We saw during the browser wars how competition raised the quality of all the browsers. I'm hoping Chrome will contribute to Firefox also improving.

Well, I guess that's about it. From all the reading I've done on Chrome, the general consensus has been that it's a good browser (though still a little young). I would go ahead and give it a try and see what you think. One area that Google shines is in UI design, and the browser has been in desperate need of a UI facelift for a while now, so I'll be excited to see where Google takes us.

But, if you haven't tried Firefox 3 yet, give it a try, too. These are both great Open Source products, so show some support!

Okay, a few quick things here. I'm getting ready for my 0.5 cross-country move (leaving early tomorrow morning). So, once again, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for your patience. I really do promise that once I get settled back in to things in NJ that we will be having regular updates again (including BDWHITE.com and skiasma).

On that note, I'm going to do my best to get a brief review/thoughts on Google's new Webkit web browser typed up. I would do it tonight, before the move, while the news is still hot, but I don't feel like I would really do Chrome (the name of the browser) justice, seeing as how I haven't had much time to put it through its paces. So, hopefully the news will still be hot enough, and you'll still care what I have to think, when I get that post to you Tuesday evening. :)

Also, I'm going to be trying to post some photos and such here and there during my journey...providing I can find wifi along the way. This will be a bit of an experiment, so expect failures, but some fun, too.

Well, I guess that's it. I hope things will return to normal here at the Felix.Ruina family soon!

Oh--I also wanted to direct everyone's attention over to EJ: Warfighter. It's been quite a while since we've had an update there, but Ed finally got around to telling us he's safe and sound, and currently on leave, gallivanting through Europe. Yeah...don't feel so bad for him now, do you? ;-)

Also, (since Ed won't be on leave forever) I wanted to point out that all of Ed's contact information can be found on EJ: Warfighter--most importantly, his mailing address where you can send fabulous care packages (both the "Contact" and "About" tabs have the mailing address).

Maybe I should start posting my mailing address so I can receive fabulous care packages. Hmmm...

Well, my final sermon out at Boise City is up in the "Sermons" section of BDWHITE.com. I have it posted in just about every format possible (plain HTML, PDF, ogg vorbis, mp3, streaming mp3). If you do happen to try the streaming mp3, let me know if it works, especially if you're using IE. It seems to work fine on Firefox for me, but this one sermon doesn't seem to want to stream in IE, and I can't figure out why. Hopefully it just happens to be my particular IE test case.

I'm really hoping that all the major browsers will get their acts together and start supporting the <audio> and <video> tags from HTML5. Mozilla has already said they are going to be supporting ogg vorbis audio and ogg theora video via the tags in the upcoming Firefox 3.1. (And I think the new Opera is supposed to support the tags as well.) This will make embedding audio and video much, much easier. In fact, the tags work basically the same as the image tag for putting a picture on your page.

The only problem is that the HTML committee didn't specify which codecs that tag should support. This is a big bummer, because it could fragment the tags into something unusable, and be basically the same as before flash video became the defacto standard because of youtube. I mean, what use is an embedded video tag, if the video is a wmv file and you're running Linux or OSX? Same problem as all the streaming video news sites from 3 or 4 years ago. The whole reason flash video works for everyone is because it requires a specified codec. And it's really a shame, too, because ogg vorbis and theora really would have fit the bill for this perfectly. Theora is not the best video codec around, but it is at least as good as mpeg4, and when Dirac comes around, it will be able to compete with things like H264 (which the new flash video is based on). And ogg vorbis as been consistently shown to best mp3, and the auto-normalization you can do with it is just awesome.

Anywho...check out the sermon...and maybe in a year or two I'll switch over to the fancy audio tags. :-)

Well, my dad sent me out a new router to set up out here, so now my laptop is once again connected to the internet. (Up until now, we were making do with a tired, little 566MHz system running Xubuntu...which was still a bit too much for it.)

I don't really have much to update on, but I at least wanted the world to know that I have not totally abandoned the Daily. Also, I have a plethora new photos that I will be going through in the near future. It's just that...my photo database is on the computer that I left back in Tulsa. I may post one or two that I have in reserve here on the laptop, but the daily skiasma posts will have to wait until I'm back in Tulsy Town.

The Olympics have been fun. The past couple of Olympics had been a bit of a let-down to me, so I was surprised and happy to find my interest piqued again. I really enjoyed the swimming (especially the men's relays--Go Lezak!), but also found myself rooting and cheering during much of the gymnastics (both men's and women's). Oh...and tennis. Really amazing tennis.

I was a bit disappointed with the couple of basketball games I watched (USA vs. Greece and USA vs. Germany). I'm glad that the USA is winning. Seriously, 4 years ago was just pitiful. At the same time, though, I just don't like the NBA style of play. I feel like the US wins because of the absolute ridiculous athleticism the players have. But as far as actually running an offense...Greece was much more fun to watch.

Okay, I guess that's enough to count as an update for now. I preach my "goodbye" sermon in Boise City on Sunday, so I'll be working on that for much of this week...along with helping my mother can the peaches that are now weighing down the peach trees. Peaches...yummy.

Sorry for the recent blog silence. It's been caused by two things. Firstly, upon returning to Boise City, I found that the internet was being very, very slow. Some prodding proved that my router has finally given up the ghost. Or, is at least on its last legs.

Secondly, we took a short family trip up to Colorado. You'll be seeing some photos of our journeys on skiasma pretty soon.

So, now I'm back in Tulsa for 2 days for a friend's wedding. That means 2 days of blazing fast internet, so I guess I'd better get my updating and such done while I'm here!