Version 0.9 of K2 was released at the end of last week. After installing it I updated my stylesheet according, but there may be some bugs. So, let me know if you find something that isn’t working.
I downloaded Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 this weekend. I was instantly greeted to a crash everytime I tried to load the program. Interestingly, the Windows update page would load without crashing, so I was able to download an IE7 patch that was available, but after installing that, it still crashed every time I opened my home page (which is just google.com), or open a new tab.
After firing up Firefox and looking around, I discovered that IE7 doesn’t play well with some versions of Google Desktop. So, I updated my Google Desktop and that fixed it! I hope Microsoft starts checking for old versions of Google Desktop during install, because if they push this out over Automatic Updates like they plan to, then there could be a lot of frustrated users out there.
As for other first impressions… it’s nice that IE has finally joined the world of tabbed browsing. CSS support seems much tighter. I’m not yet used to this whole “bubbly” thing that Microsoft has going on with its new software (see also Windows Media Player 11). But it seems alright.
I’ve played around with some of the new self-clearing methods now that was I doing before doesn’t work with IE7. Luckily, there is a minor modification of the easy clearing method which is working.
Electric cars used to be these vehicles which were impractical for just about everyone because of their limited range and sluggish performance. Not anymore. Check out the Tesla Roadster.
Me want.
I read a scary article on Yahoo! this morning about a fight in Congress about whether or not to allow internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast to provide fee-based services for access to certain internet sites. The scenario is like the following: if you get just the ‘basic’ service, you might browse to your favorite search engine, say Google, but it is horribly slow, or the site won’t come up on your browser at all. However, Yahoo! search has partnered with your ISP, so their search site is instantly accessible even with the ‘basic’ service. If you upgrade to the ISP’s ‘silver’ plan, then suddenly Google is is available to you again (sounds like cable television, doesn’t it?). This scenario, where ISPs control what content is available to you over the Internet is at odds with the idea of Net Neutrality.
If the telcos get their way, get ready for a massive stifling of innovation. Sure, Google has deep enough pockets now that it could probably make arrangements with ISPs so that its search was available even with a ‘basic’ plan, but would Google have made it back in 1998 when it was competing with Lycos, Infoseek, and Yahoo!?
I started using the new google calendar on the first day that it was available. I felt a bit guilty when signing up because it looks like google basically made their own version of 30boxes. Google is becoming so large that I worry about letting them handle an increasing portion of my computer life (now at gmail, desktop search, and calendar). But, what got me on google calendar instead of 30boxes was the gmail integration. Gmail has quickly become my default email client when I’m not at home (love the keyboard shortcuts!). And really this new calendar has some nice features, like the public calendars and automatic email invitations.
I’ve been searching for a good calendar software for quite a while. I realize that Outlook is the usual choice for windows users, but I don’t use Outlook for email (bloated and susceptible to too many security threats), so I wasn’t going to start using it just for the calendar feature. Thunderbird is my default email client at home, so I took a look at the Lightning Project, but it looks too “alpha” to trust my data to. The Chandler project also looks like it will be worth a look when they get further along. In the meantime, I’m letting myself get further sucked into the googleverse.