24: Chatting it up with my Chromies
2008-09-21
Download MP3 For Geekons Episode 24
Pop-Up: Google Chrome
- In order to make a cool comic, Google had to make a browser for the comic to be based on http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html
- You can get all the technical details in the comic book, but I'll review some of the basics and my opinions of them here.
- First things first, let's start clean! I never like migrating data from one app to another, it gives you a fresh start with zero expectations.
- It is surprisingly easy to get used to, but Chrome has opted to put the tabs above the address bar, so each tab is like its own browser, that just happens to be contained in the same window.
- Each tab is its own process
- you can pull tabs off the main browser window to make a new window, or drag and drop tabs between existing chrome windows
- you can visit a page, like gmail, and make a link to the app by clicking the little page icon and choosing "create application shortcuts..." (try it with your favorite online email client like hotmail, gmail, or yahoo mail and see what you think. I do it with gmail and pandora.)
- If a plugin misbehaves and crashes, it only crashes that plugin's content, not the whole page/browser!
- If a tab misbehaves and crashes, it only crashes that tab, not the whole browser!
- When you click a link from one domain to go to another, it closes the old process and starts a new one, which makes it a bit safer (think of not only putting all your browsing in a sandbox, but putting each website in its own sandbox separated from other websites... sort of)
- You can view the memory, CPU, and network usage of all your tabs by right-clicking the title bar and choosing "task manager" or pressing "shift+escape" (for fun, try killing a tab!)
- Search straight from the address bar
- search websites you visit from the address bar after you've searched on their site
- see how long you can go without bookmarking
- kiss your hard drive free space goodbye if you browse tons of media-rich sites
- you can, however, clear browser data
- incognito window, pray before using!
- no RSS?!
- no add-ons yet
- 3 out of 5 stars, RSS is a big deal, cannot encrypt stored passwords, anyone using your computer can view the clear-text of existing passwords easily, and there are still obscure problems on many websites
Geek-Tweak: Getting Started with IRSSI to Chat in IRC
- First off, IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat
- To chat in IRC, you would use a client (Irssi in this tutorial) to connect to a server (open.ircnet.net for us) in order to join a channel (irssi for us)
- Okay, so first off, let's install irssi. You can download the latest version from http://www.irssi.org
- I'll assume Windows XP/Vista 32 bit in this tutorial, so we'll just grab the installer from the home page. http://irssi.org/files/irssi_0_8_12_setup_2.exe
- After downloading the file and saving it to my computer (I always save it first and let my antivirus have its way with the file) I'll just double click the file and follow the onscreen instructions (keeping the defaults)
- Once it is installed, I like to immediately open the cygwin version, to do this go to: Start>All Programs>Irssi Console IRC Chat>Irssi (in Cygterm)
- This pops up a very unfriendly interface (which ROCKS!)
- type connect open.ircnet.net
- once it scrolls through some messages, it may tell you that your nickname is already in use, so let's change that nickname!
- type nick followed by a space and a nick name you'd like
- keep doing this until you find a nickname that isn't in use.
- Once you've found one, let's head over to a channel, I randomly picked #irssi since you may want to learn more from other people using irssi
- type join #irssi
- you should now be directed to a new "window" that lists all the people in the #irssi channel.
- If you want to go back to the original "window" where you joined the channel, press + 1
- If you want to go back to the #christian channel, press + N (for next) or + P (for previous)
- if you know the number of the window you want to go to, just press + n where n is the number of the window
- to leave a channel, type leave
- to quit altogether, type quit
View-Source: The Prodigal Son
- Obvious joke: The Geekons Podcast has finally returned!
- Real-world application: God loves to see sinners repent and return to Him
- The father in the story represents God, our Heavenly Father
- The prodigal son represents the sinner (all of us at one point in our life)
- Sin in this story is painted in the story as separation from the father, which is incredibly accurate
- In the end, the prodigal son wasn't lifted above the other son, but was celebrated as having returned. The father would still offer everything to both sons.
- We are God's children, Ephesians 1 describes us as having a direct loving father-child relationship with God, as well as an inheritance with Him
- No matter what you are going through that is separating you from God, you can always return to Him, leaving behind the old and embracing a new and celebrated life with the Father.
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