Going Google Chrome (1 of 2)

Doing this post reminds me of the time when I had to write about moving from Firefox to Opera. Back then, it was primarily about issues with Firefox 3.0. This time it’s about the “This is embarassing” issue with Firefox 3.5 getting more and more frequent. While the way Firefox handles its mess is commendable and somewhat funny, it becomes more and more irritating as it happens more and more frequently.

Sure it might not be the core developers’ fault there. This time, however, I don’t have any plugins so getting burned browsing isn’t exactly encouraging to me. So instead of sticking it out and maybe trying to find what’s causing some 10 or 20-something tabbed session go caput…

Enter Google Chrome

While it was not exactly the first time I used the browser, the previous weeks found me taking a long and extensive look at what the internet giant has to offer. I have used the browser for testing a proxy project for school recently so it was all a matter of some bits of tweaking before I had things going for me.

An officemate of mine told me that Google Chrome was the fastest around when he did benchmarks of different browsers for school work as well. (It isn’t hard to guess which one came in last.) I wasn’t that much surprised because the guys from Google were just living up to one of their promises in reinventing the browser.

So Far…

…I’m liking the experience. Pretty much to have me set it as my default at least for the time being.

Apart from the often-noted gains on speed, Google Chrome dares to do things differently so I guess one downside to adopting it for one’s internet pleasure would be the need to take time to get used to how it does things. For one so used to seeing the usual window bar then menu then tabs layout when browsing, getting something without the first two parts can slow you down at first.

Google Chrome Layout

One thing noteworthy here is in how the decision to strike a balance between functionality and simplicity was achieved.

And for Tweaks and Peaks…

…there’s the Developer Tools from Google. I’ve pretty much missed what Google has to offer in this respect when doing my Client-Server term project so finding it out these past few days raised my delights on the browser to say the least.

First there’s the Developer-Elements treat for the web developer wanting to skim across piles of DOM material of the current page.

The Developer-Elements Functionality

Then there’s the Developer-Javascript tool to those who want to get dirty with Javascript. It is worth noting that the browser chooses to implement Javascript rendition differently from other browsers as anyone who understands their comic would.

Developer-Javascript Console Functionality

And finally, the multi-process nature of sessions in Chrome obviously requires some means of allowing users to manage the processes. This is where the Task Manager familiar to Windows users comes in.

Google Chrome Task Manager

New Tabs

Opening a new tab brings up the most visited pages in thumbnail format by default. The said layout reminds me of Opera’s Speed Dial functionality really:

New Tab - By Thumbnails

Of course there’s the list-format setting for those who prefer to run down through lists:

New Tab - By List

Epilogue

I’ve finally decided to move my blog elsewhere. It’s pretty much something I’ve talked about time and again in this blog but just had time to do so recently.

This is my 72nd post here after 2 years. Looking back, it was a whole lot of content and even greater deal of time spent, (or wasted,) here.

So there’s nothing much in order but a goodbye to Yahoo 360 and hello to WordPress. To those who wish to update their blogrolls and RSS feeds, help yourselves.

Yourminis Test

I’ve received an email from my goowy account notifying me of their latest service: YourMinis.

Since my ever so busy schedule allows me just a few minutes for the internet, my observations and views regarding will be spilled at a later post. For now, this post will give way to a simple script test.

So without futher ado, here’s my first yourminis tab:

var ym_serverlocation=’http://www.yourminis.com/live.aspx?tabid=yourminis/patrickestrella/delivery’

Phishing

Busy as usual, (or business as usual?) I need to find time to post this somewhere however, (I was supposed to post it yesterday but then there’s work again.)

In fact, I think it’s pretty imperative to inform other people about the Phishing gimmick victimizing Equitable PCI. So goes the security advisory email I received yesterday morning:

Be wary of unsolicited e-mail from a financial institution or retail business asking to confirm e-mail or physical address, passwords, account numbers, and personal identification numbers. It likely is a “phishing” lure. E-mail spammers frequently use this technique to con people into handing over personal information. The e-mail routes its victims to Web sites that mimic those of legitimate companies. Equitable PCI Bank is one of the latest instances and other Philippines financial institutions likely are just as prone to this type of scam.

A quick google search tells you that even BPI was targetted before. On the international scene there was an instance when even paypal users were aimed.

For those who don’t have a clue, Phishing is a scheme aimed at fooling users into giving away personal and sensitive information such as email addresses and passwords, bank account numbers and PIN’s through devious schemes such as emails and website clones.

So go ahead and copy paste the message and send it to other people if you want to. Much as I’d want to post some some tips against Phishing here, my lack of time just doesn’t allow me to.

I’m Back!

Just when I thought my next blog entry here would spell out some sort of a laptop obituary, the guys at Servimax pulled off something which compels me to write a thank-God sort of entry.

I’m supposed to come up with something very important that’s why one could just imagine how aghast I was when my laptop wouldn’t even let me through BIOS last Wednesday night. I had to have the notebook serviced right then but wasn’t quite sure when I would be back in action without my aide.

It was a good thing my wife called yesterday so we got to know it was already for pick-up.

To cut the long story short, we picked up the notebook yesterday and the next thing I knew, I’m writing this.

Moving On

One thing that’s ironically amusing about times when you have to stuff your head into work is that these are the same times when good reads flush down hard on you just when you barely have the time to pay attention to each one. I used to make it a point to write about sensible stuff I eventually encounter along but now I’d just have to raise my hands and hope for the best.

The most I can do is save the URL/s in a draft email and again hope that I would be able to get back to something should I have some time to actually sit down and write soon. After some time it wasn’t hard to notice that the size of my Drafts folder was already catching up with that of my Inbox.

Nope. It doesn’t have anything to do with an obviously short-lived resolution I made last year: to update this blog regularly. At a time when good things have been proven to be rarer than the presence of raindrops on the desert, I just have to keep those reads and scribbles somewhere so that I can get back to them sometime. You’ll never know when a refreshing read might come in handy. Maybe later, maybe soon… maybe never.

Because I’ve always been a sucker for nostalgic hulabaloo’s, I found this particular article very interesting. That coupled with the fact that it talks about sociological factors involved in migration, (both legal and in this case, mostly illegal,) and a whole lot of other interesting stuff and sensible points.

To summarize, the threadstarter wrote about the Alaska he once knew as he was leaving the place he and his ancestors have called home. Migration of people from the lower 48’s costed him his memories of the growth of his family, the northern lights on a clear night and salmon spawning in the creek as one Alaskan moves out and four more “cheechakos” will move in.

Two things pointed out there is that people move somewhere and along with their settlement comes change.

Interestingly, my father who is of immigrant status moved there around two years ago and he’s now in Anchorage. In contrast, the guy’s been living there for 20 years already while his ancestors moved in around 100 years ago. Furthermore add the thread’s accounts of a lot of hometown changes and the migratory preference of my fellowmen still at homebase and everything’s been pretty much enough to get me to sit down and think despite my busy schedule.

The inherent search for places of settlement for humans has never been recent. While those accounted for there span years or decades, (or around a century in the case of the threadstarter concerned’s ancestors,) it has gone on a lot in the very distant past. Civilizations of thousands of years ago did it, (the Summerians taken as case in point there,) and so did caravans of gypsies and bands of nomads hundreds of years before you even get to read this.

Humans need to respond to change. It has been the same anywhere and anytime on this planet when promising plains get exhausted by the influx of people for different reasons. Be it to escape adversities such as poverty, war, famine or oppression or to hopefully start anew, people tend to move to some place where they see themselves better off.

And along with their arrival comes change.

I’m almost tempted to write how I remember Metro Manila more than twenty years ago. Having lived my life in this part of the country for most of my life, I’ve seen it change through the years. A lot of it has to do with the general perception of those from the provinces: Metro Manila promises hope. Given poverty as an alternative from their places, it isn’t hard to see why they would be willing to try out their luck here.

Despite the fact that opportunities are limited especially after a certain threshold of the urban population is reached, people still come here looking to settle here.

Is it surprising then that we see a rise of crime in Metro Manila in the recent decades? Is it surprising then that traffic has been a staple ingredient in day to day travel here? Is it surprising at all how people seem to have become mean and unfriendly?

I’m not complaining though. In fact I myself am not closing out the possiblity of trying out my luck somewhere else because of entirely practical purposes.

After all wasn’t it Heraclitus who said nothing endures but change?

Iodine for the I in IQ

Since I used to find time to write about something relevant to social issues, health, progress, politics, history and other stuff that actually made people think I’m smart and sensible, I’m taking another shot at it with this recent NY article regarding Iodine and International IQ.

The article begins its discussion of the ingredient’s significance by mentioning Valentina Sivryukova’s success in Kazakhstan in trying to raise public awareness regarding the benefits of using iodized salt. Ms. Sivryukova is the president of the National Confederation of Kazakh Charities.

Proof of this is the fact that only 29 percent of its households used iodized salt in 1999 compared to the current figure of 94 percent. This, even though it’s still considered a developing nation, shows that public health can be achieved with the proper initiative and support.

The rest of the article then talks about the advantages of iodine, global awareness on the issue, current situations in other countries regarding and international drives to eliminate iodine deficiency. I guess the one that pretty much caught my attention was a fact there stating that iodine deficiency lowers intelligence by 10 to 15 I.Q. points!

If I recall it right, FVR initiated a similar campaign during his term as president. I’m pretty curious at how it actually affected the national I.Q. What I keep on seeing in international intellectual ratings and evaluations are hardly encouraging. Examples of this are the continuous plunging of the quality of local universities in Asiaweek’s ratings and another international study on grade school intelligence placing the filipino kid somewhere among the last on the list of asian countries.

And I haven’t even talked about other IQ-related factors such as budget allocation on and policy making affecting education and academic research, and poverty reduction.

Quotable Quotes: As Good As It Gets (1997) – II

I split the quotes for the movie into two entries because I figured out that maybe it got to be pretty boring reading all those lines in one blog entry alone. In any case, here’s the continuation again from IMDB:

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: People who talk in metaphors oughta shampoo my crotch.

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: Thank you, Melvin. You overwhelm me.
[pauses]
Simon Bishop: I love you.
Melvin Udall: I tell you, buddy… I’d be the luckiest man alive if that did it for me.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I’m drowning here, and you’re describing the water!

________________________________________

Carol: Do you want to dance?
Melvin Udall: I’ve been thinking about that for a while.
Carol: [standing up] Well?
Melvin Udall: No.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Judging from your eyes, I’d say you were fifty.
Carol: Judging from your eyes, I’d say you were kind, so so much for eyes.

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: If you stare at someone long enough, you discover their humanity.

________________________________________

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall: I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: The best thing you have going for you is your willingness to humiliate yourself.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Can I ask you a personal question?
Simon Bishop: Sure.
Melvin Udall: You ever get an erection over a woman?
Simon Bishop: Melvin…
Melvin Udall: I mean, wouldn’t your life be easier if you weren’t…
Simon Bishop: You consider your life easy?
[pause]
Melvin Udall: All right, I give you that one.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I can’t do this without you. I’m afraid he might pull the stiff one-eye on me.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I can’t get back to my old life. She’s evicted me from my life!
Simon Bishop: Did you really like it all that much?

________________________________________

[to Dr. Bettes, Spencer’s wonderful new doctor]
Carol Connelly: Can we get you anything else? Water, coffee, couple of female slaves?

________________________________________

Dr. Martin Bettes: My wife is Melvin Udall’s publisher. She said that I was to take excellent care of this little guy because you are urgently needed back at work. What kind of work do you do?
Carol Connelly: I’m a waitress.
Beverly Connelly: In Manhattan.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: You’re a disgrace to depression.

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: Rot in hell, Melvin!
Melvin Udall: No need to stop being a lady. Quit worryin! You’ll be back on your knees in no time!

________________________________________

Carol Connelly: How are you?
Simon Bishop: Don’t ask. I’m tired of my own complaints. I need to get some new thoughts.
Carol Connelly: Why? What are you thinking about now?
Simon Bishop: How to die, mostly.
Carol Connelly: To think that in our little mix you’re the good roommate.

________________________________________

Carol Connelly: Why can’t I have a normal boyfriend? Just a regular boyfriend, one that doesn’t go nuts on me!
Beverly Connelly: Everybody wants that, dear. It doesn’t exist.

________________________________________

Frank Sachs: Can you drive him?
Melvin Udall: Think white, and get serious!

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I’ve got Jews at my table.
Carol Connelly: It’s not your table, behave! This once, you can sit at someone else’s station.
[all the other waitresses gasp]
Carol Connelly: Or you can wait your turn.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Police! Donut-munching morons, HELP ME! HELP ME!
Frank Sachs: Shh!
Melvin Udall: Assault and Battery – and you’re black!

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: Lucky for you… you’re here for rock-bottom. You absolute horror of a human being.

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: Verdell. What’s wrong? You miss the tough guy?
[imitating Melvin]
Simon Bishop: Well, here I am, sweetheart! Happy to see me, you little pissant mop? How ’bout another ride down the chute?

________________________________________

[Melvin enters the restaurant in his suit]
Carol Connelly: You look so se-… um, you look great.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I’m dying here.
Simon Bishop: Because you love her.
Melvin Udall: No! And you people are supposed to be sensitive and sharp?

________________________________________

Simon Bishop: Melvin, do you know where you’re lucky? You know who you want.

________________________________________

[crying and laughing at the same time]
Melvin Udall: Over a dog! Over an ugly dog!

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Did you have sex with her?
[Carol comes out of the bathroom]
Melvin Udall: Oh, sorry. I didn’t know she was here. Did you have sex with her?

________________________________________

[dumping Verdell down the garbage chute]
Melvin Udall: This is New York, pal. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere!

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Oh, you were talking about your dog. I thought you were referring to that colored man inside your apartment.
Simon Bishop: Uh, what color would that be?
Melvin Udall: Like uh, like thick MO-lasses.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: As long as you keep your work zipped up around me, I don’t give a rat-crap what or where you shove your show. Are we done being neighbors for now?

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: How much more you got to eat? Appetites aren’t as big as your noses, huh?

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Just what the world needs, another actress.

________________________________________

[after Carol arrives at Melvin’s apartment in the middle of the night]
Carol Connelly: I’m not going to sleep with you! I will never sleep with you, never, ever! Not ever!
Melvin Udall: Well, I’m sorry, but… we don’t
open for the “no sex oaths” until 9am.

________________________________________

Carol: A compliment is something nice about somebody else.

________________________________________

Carol: Is it a secret what you’re doing here?
Melvin Udall: I had to see you.
Carol: Because?
Melvin Udall: It relaxes me. I’d feel better sitting outside your apartment on the curb than any other place I can think of or imagine.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I don’t get this place. They make me buy a new outfit and let you in a housedress. I don’t get it.

________________________________________

[last lines]
Melvin Udall: Want something?
Carol: Warm rolls.

Quotable Quotes: As Good As It Gets (1997) – I

I actually started out posting a quotable quotes entry sometime before alluded to Darkwing Duck. This time, I thought it worthwhile to post something in the same spirit about one of the few movies I actually enjoyed.

As Good As It Gets is fraught with quotes, mostly wisecracks, that it’d be just wrong for me not to post them here. Jack Nicholson’s sterling portrayal of Melvin Udall and Helen Hunt’s excellent enactment of Carol Connelly more than justifies their Best Actor and Best Actress awards at the Oscars in the year of the Titanic phenomenon.

The refreshing alternative to the fad on the ocean liner’s tragedy was more than a welcome for invitation for me that time. Titanic was just too much then. The sound track’s drumming my ears anywhere I go-malls, public transportation sounds, local radio stations, etc. All buses I take on the way to school show pirated versions of it during a time when constructions of the skyway and the mrt were responsible for mammoth traffic on the roads.

Add Greg Kinnear’s characterization of Simon Bishop and seeing the movie was pretty much fun for me. So without further ado, here are some of the quotes from IMDB.

______________________________

Simon Bishop: You’re why cavemen chiseled on walls.

________________________________________

Carol: Come on in, and try not to ruin everything by being you.
Melvin Udall: Maybe we could live *without* the wisecracks.
Carol: Maybe we could.

________________________________________

Carol: OK, we all have these terrible stories to get over, and you-…
Melvin Udall: It’s not true. Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that’s their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so many others had it good.

________________________________________

Carol: Have you ever let a romantic moment make you do something that you knew was stupid?

________________________________________

Frank Sachs: I grew up in hell! My grandmother has more attitude than you!

________________________________________

Frank Sachs: If there’s a mental health organization that raises money for people like you, be sure to let me know.
Melvin Udall: Last word freak.

________________________________________

[to Verdell the dog]
Melvin Udall: Don’t be like me. Don’t you be like me!

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I’ve got a really great compliment for you, and it’s true.
Carol Connelly: I’m so afraid you’re about to say something awful.
Melvin Udall: Don’t be pessimistic, it’s not your style. Okay, here I go: Clearly, a mistake. I’ve got this, what – ailment? My doctor, a shrink that I used to go to all the time, he says that in fifty or sixty percent of the cases, a pill really helps. I *hate* pills, very dangerous thing, pills. Hate. I’m using the word “hate” here, about pills. Hate. My compliment is, that night when you came over and told me that you would never… well, you were there, you know what you said. Well, my compliment to you is, the next morning, I started taking the pills.
Carol Connelly: I don’t quite get how that’s a compliment for me.
Melvin Udall: You make me want to be a better man.
Carol Connelly: …That’s maybe the best compliment of my life.
Melvin Udall: Well, maybe I overshot a little, because I was aiming at just enough to keep you from walking out.

________________________________________

[after telling Carol that he thinks she’s the greatest woman on Earth]
Melvin Udall: Is that something that’s bad for you to be around, for you?
Carol Connelly: No.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: [introducing Carol to Simon] Carol the waitress, Simon the fag.

________________________________________

Carol: When you first entered the restaurant, I thought you were handsome… and then, of course, you spoke.

________________________________________

Carol Connelly: Do you have any control over how creepy you allow yourself to get?
Melvin Udall: Yes I do, as a matter of fact. And to prove it, I have not gotten personal, and you have.

________________________________________

Carol: Fucking H.M.O. bastard pieces of shit!
Beverly Connelly: Carol!
Carol: Sorry.
Dr. Martin Bettes: It’s okay. Actually, I think that’s their technical name.

________________________________________

[to a group of depressed psychiatric patients]
Melvin Udall: What if this is as good as it gets?

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you’re the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, “Spence,” and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that’s all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Never, never, interrupt me, okay? Not if there’s a fire, not even if you hear the sound of a thud from my home and one week later there’s a smell coming from there that can only be a decaying human body and you have to hold a hanky to your face because the stench is so thick that you think you’re going to faint. Even then, don’t come knocking. Or, if it’s election night, and you’re excited and you wanna celebrate because some fudgepacker that you date has been elected the first queer president of the United States and he’s going to have you down to Camp David, and you want someone to share the moment with. Even then, don’t knock. Not on this door. Not for ANY reason. Do you get me, sweetheart?
Simon Bishop: [clears his throat] Uhm, yes. It’s not a… subtle point that you’re making.
Melvin Udall: Okay then.
[Shuts door in Simon’s face]

________________________________________

[Sitting in the bar after Carol storms out]
Melvin Udall: Well, it’s not right to go into details, I got nervous. I screwed up, I said the wrong thing… Where if I hadn’t, I could be in bed right now with a woman who, if you make her laugh, you got a life. Instead I’m here with you
[gestures to bartender]
Melvin Udall: . No offense, but a moron pushing the last legal drug.

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: How can you diagnose someone with an obsessive compulsive disorder, then act like I have some choice about barging in here?

________________________________________

Melvin Udall: Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City “Sailor wanna hump-hump” bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.

To be continued…

Well, Well, Whadayaknow

Just when I thought I wouldn’t stuff another stream of texts here, I end up writing something. Actually I was just busy passing the day, reading stuff I penned previously.

So what happened? As a lot of you already know, my father-in-law passed away last month prior to which cancer pressed against him. That was more than enough stress. (I don’t even want to open my next credit card bill even for a slight peek. Incidentally that credit card with the biggest dent happens to be the same credit card I should’ve closed roughly a month after I posted the previous blog entry here.) It was more than enough to keep me away from this blog when I should’ve talked about my daughter’s birthday, my own birthday, a whole lot of social issues and an even greater deal of insights on a wider plain of topics.

I’ll write about them though. How soon we’ll see. I’ll have to agree with Lei that ideas in your head tend to become stale when you don’t put them into writing.* And before anything else, I’d like to thank those who expressed their condolences to our family for what happened… or some other bullshit to that effect, (just when you thought I was starting to sound generic, huh!)

* People who know me know that I put links when I mention someone. Well strangely, I don’t know her blog. Sure I can look for it but I’m pretty lazy to pull off a search like I usually do when I was hifi’s resident linksman.

Please do me a favor then. If you happen to know Lei’s blog, please post it in a comment here. Comments here don’t allow HTML so the plain URL would do. When I get the time to actually hone and use my PHP and MySQL geekery, I’ll relocate my ramblings to where comments can accomodate at least links and where there’s an easilly accessible sidebar for links to other blogs, sites. Are you reading this 360 hotshots?!!