I tried to settle on using just one but I just couldn’t. If I want to watch some flash video online or browse a really heavy site Skyfire is really the only option.

For browsing mobile sites or sites that fit enough on the small display I still prefer the default Web browser because I don’t have to zoom.

For others I like Opera 10 Mobile because you have a nice bookmarks page, it’s snappy and looks good.

That’s why I don’t really get the browser wars found around the forums and the internet. Having the choice is great. The only way to get decent video and performance of heavy sites it’s trough a proxy based browser so this is where Skyfire fits. On the other hand I don’t like trusting 3rd parties with my passwords so for private pages I use the default web browser. For some pages Opera is faster and more confortable.

As always YMMV so be sure to give them a try.

Let me just say that I am completely unimpressed. It’s a linux kernel with a browser on top of it. Yes it boots quickly but hey it’s a linux kernel with only a browser on top of it, yes it gives you access to Google services but hey it’s a web browser of course it does. So basically Google has a Linux kernel and a browser which to push for embedded devices used to browse the internet. Wow .

So, Google, IMHO has developed some more custom stuff to run on top of a linux kernel. Great. I already feel the revolution . Of course, since it’s Google doing it everybody will treat it as something great so I bet we’ll pretty soon see around devices running it.

Me? Give me a Maemo running nokia device anytime over some crappy java (Android) or web browser (Chrome os) on top of a custom linux kernel.

Than XP solved this problem (not that it didn’t quietly overwrite the boot sector) by needing far less frequent reinstalls. When I found out about vmware I was very happy, dual boot seemed a thing of the past. I don’t play games so missing 3d performance was not an issue, the occasional Counter Strike with the friends work’s fine on my wife’s laptop or in wine. (I was not about to use xp as the host). Well it was not that simple. Performance was sketchy at best, issues and so on made me abandon the idea.
Recently I ran into the isuee of needing windows 7 and XP besides linux. I was not about to tripleboot and anyway I found myself running wiondows more than linux just because I needed frequent access to some peace of software. So, after a recent upgrade to my main machine I decided to give virtualization another spin. Virtualbox caught my attention because of it’s open source nature. I read a few comparative reviews of it compared with vmware and seemed pretty much the same for me so I went with it.
Between the new processor I have, the sufficent ram and modern virtualizatin software I can safely say that I won’t be dual booting anytime soon. Windows 7 seemed to take less time to install under virtualbox than it took live, I also can test new ideeas quickly – it took a whole 10 minutes to test Chrome OS, well the new great revolution from Google seems a whole 10 minutes for me but that’s another story. XP runs smoothly, 7 runs smoothly, heck I have Freedos running smoothly. Also now I have no more excuses to postpone playing with open solaris and other systems.
Conclusion: virtualization has finally got to the point where it is good enough for me. It had it’s uses before and I’m sure there are some that still have no use for it yet.
But if you found yourself rebooting too often lately you might want to decide for a host os (where you need maximum performance) and try to use your other os’s as virtual machines. You might find out, just like I did, that given enough RAM virtualization is sufficent. And nothing beats having everything readily available in windows side by side.

• Antec Fusion Remote 350 mini HTPC case.
• Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-DS2H mini ATX socket AM2 motherboard.
• Western Digital 1Tb, Green
• AMD 4850E dual core, energy efficient processor.
• 1 GB DDR2 RAM
• LG Black DVD-RW drive
• Temporary low profile, cheap video card for s-video out.

The case:

I initially wanted a full ATX case, but they were either ugly either too expensive. I finally went for the (mini ATX) Antec Remote 350 because for the price of a bare ATX case I got a 80+ power supply, 3 80mm fans, LCD screen and remote. The case is a bit on the cramped side but everything fits together nice, it’s well ventilated and pretty quiet but still providing good airflow. There are in-depth reviews around so I won’t go into details. Suffice to say it’s pretty cheap, comes with a PSU and does the job.

The motherboard:

It was pretty cheap when I got it, and simillar boards should be available. It has everything you need on board: 3200HD graphics, HDMI, audio, 128 Mb video memory, 5 SATA ports, lot’s of USB ports, optical audio, e-Sata, firewire and so on.

The CPU:

It’s an older dual core AMD Energy Efficient, it has a 45W TDP at 2.5 Ghz. It does the job and it runs very cool allowing for a silent cooler to do the job.

The Hard Drive:

It’s a green Western Digital. It’s quiet and fast enough. Combined with the rubber mounting of the Antec case allows for virtual quiet operation.

Video Card:

My TV is pretty old, so I need S-Video out for it. Until we upgrade to a flat panel I’ll need a video card as the mother board doesn’t provide S-Video or RCA out.

Here’s a link to the datasheet.

In my opinion firefox fails to improve performance as promised. It has some new features, it has some bad new features and it misses the speed we want and need. Ajax sites seem just as slow as they were in Firefox 3.0. It still isn’t 100 on the ACID 3 test and so on.

It has private mode but instead of opening a new window – maybe with a different color scheme to mark it’s privacy – it simply closes every tab and window and opens a new empty one in private mode. That’s bad implementation in my opinion. Chrome is clearly ahead here.

Google also has some shame points because, even if Firefox 3.5 has been out for some time as a RC and now stable, they failed to upgrade Google Gears for it. Do I smell some Chrome favoritism?

I will still use Firefox because I don’t like Internet Explorer and because I still dislike Chrome for no particular reason – just a feeling – and also because I use some extensions not available elsewhere.

Every one in a while a friend or relative would ask me on advice on what digital camera to buy. Many of them are on their second or third model and realized that, even if they bought the camera with the most megapixels they could afford at the time, they didn’t get the quality they expected. That is also true and in part exacerbated with phones.

Marketing is not driving innovation in this case – it’s driving nonsense ! Yes increasing the pixel count on the sensor gives you more resolution, it also gives you more noise.

Yes, you can have a lot of megapixels on an APS or full frame sensor inside a DSLR and get away with it. Cramming the same number of pixels in a sensor the size one would typically find inside a phone or compact digicam is pure idiocy.

I wish the manufacturers would focus on better lens than on more megapixels – but the cost is higher for them and the marketing would take a hit. Nobody knows why f1.4 is better than f2.8 which is better than f5.7 and so on.

Phones ? I bet you that if they would stick with 3.2 megapixels – which btw is really enough for snapshots you take with a phone – you will get magnificent shots.

Note to manufacturers: nobody takes pictures with their phones and print wall sized posters from them !

So, unless you buy a camera for really big prints – but then you would know what you need – check other features of your future camera instead of megapixels:

• check samples (not on the manufacturers website as those always look good) on a reputable site like DPReview.com
• use the camera in store and read a review to see how others find the control layout and ergonomics
• type of card used (you really want a more expensive Sony Memory Stick? etc.)
• type of battery – custom Li-Ion or regular AA Ni-Mh rechargables – each has it’s own advantages

After that and more go with the one you liked even if it has the lowest megapixel count.

I can only say this cow bagles !

First of all there’s no way that you can cram the 19” plus experience of a normal desktop monitor on a 2.5 – 3.5 inches screen. No way, no matter how fast the device is it will never be the same. To the resolution I can only say that I already wear glasses, I don’t need a freaking microscope when using my phone. Common 640×480 on a 2.4” screen ? How out of reach with the real world can you be to write this crap in a review?

Even if one day you can stuff a 2 Ghz CPU and 1680×1050 pixels all in a nice mobile phone with a ~3” screen you’ll need a microscope to be able to browse the web. So, untill the phone will beam the image directly into your brain you are still stuck with either zooming, either panning – this is what the physical world dictates ! So next time you see the revolution announced just do what I do – ignore it.

I’m not saying that there isn’t a good evolution in mobile browsers – heck I can browse pretty much any website on the default browser of the E71 and I can watch most streaming video sites using Skyfire – just saying that I won’t have my hone 20” screen experience in my pocket any time soon.

We have an older Toshiba M100 that my wife uses which has always been silent. The only time that I hear it’s fan is when I encode video files on it. And even then I notice it, it’s still quiet. I would expect a small machine, with an extremely efficeint cpu to be silent.

I still think that I’ll get a laptop just for me in the future but for now I think I’ll go with a thin and light 12” or 13” laptop that usually costs only a bit more than a netbook and still sports double the ram, a dual core cpu, double battery life and only a bit more weight.

By the way, I see more and more manufacturers pushing 12” netbooks. Why? It’s enough to call it a netbook to be able to sell it with an insuficient battery, slow cpu, crap on board graphics ?

I know that netbooks are all the rage today but I sure am happy that I didn’t buy one.

Be Creative, experiment. It inspired me to brush up my creative projects folder. I really find that Adam once started is hard to stop. His insight into problem solving is also very interesting. Anyways, just watch it and comment. I bet that, if you are into building or tinkering with stuff you will like it too !