Feeling Entity

At last, my one week of testing Internet Explorer 8 comes to an end. It’s feeling great to ditch IE in this moment, but being back to Firefox is not so great. I can't just put my experience with IE8 in a single word or two and it can't be even assigned with some tags like #GREAT or #FAIL. IE8 is a mixed bag of bloat, with most ugly and uninteresting of them all.

IE8 does most of the regular web surfing jobs normally but when the usage time extends beyond 15 minute, serious users start feeling riding on a malfunctioning snail. Even usual sites like Twitter and Facebook are not handled well with this browser. Ridiculously, writing something in Twitter update box increases the CPU usage to 100%. In Facebook, page elements are often out of definite order and idiotically in the page. Running in ‘Compatibility Mode’ did not help too much either, only fixing some issues with Facebook. And strangely enough, when I got more than just 3 tabs opened, creating just another tab takes almost 2 seconds while the lag should not be more than just a few milliseconds. Following web standards never was IE’s forte and this time too it does not even start acid3 test. On the other hand while MS is spending too much time on beautification of Windows 7, IE is getting uglier with each increasing version. Such big tabs in such a small place, it’s not even usable with 5 or more tabs are opened while someone is working on 1024*768 resolution. With all those fallacies at its disposal, I did not find a single good feature in IE that surpasses any of Firefox, Chrome, Safari or even Opera.

Greetings guys, I'm back. I could not stop me from the lure of World Wide Web, my bad. I was just going through my subscribed feeds in Google Reader yesterday and announcement of Safari 4 Beta caught my eyes. First screenshots and early reviews were positive and mostly based on Mac OS X version of the browser. Since I don’t have my hackintosh installation handy at that moment, I went on downloading Windows version and installed on Windows 7 Beta.

I was taken aback by the results. Seriously, how can Apple make such crap after spending so many nice years with Mac et al. Believe me or not, Safari 4 is purely a piece of nice looking shit on my Windows 7 installation. I don’t know why, but unfortunately two most revered features, ‘Top Sites’ and ‘Cover Flow’ does not work and just shows huge black screens. Adding 'Cover Flow' to almost everything is the latest Apple trend, even one of my Macboy friends says,

When Apple runs out of ideas for new features to add to an application, they add Cover Flow to it.

They tried to ‘borrow’ heavily from Google Chrome and created something that is way bad looking even from its previous version. Gone are the neat, clean and suave looks of Safari, current version is hollow form of flattery. I don’t even understand why Apple went on copying from Chrome as the end result is as bad as IE5 in Mac OS X. While Google Chrome still retains a lovely clean look and feel, Safari 4 is best left alone.

Performance is also a mixed bag, while some JavaScript based sites opened faster than Minefield 3.2Pre, there are disappointments too. CSS Animation and passing Acid 3 test are the only two things I liked about this version. On the other hand, Safari 4 beta can even put shame on Firefox’s face for being resource heavy; it’s a damned resource clogging behemoth.

Posterous is simply great and very appealing to use. After using Tumblr for some months, when I finally switched to Posterous, a sigh of relief came from my heart and it felt like "At last, something simple and easy to use without bloat".

Now, as I've used it for a while and also browsed through a good number of other members' areas, Posterous feels almost same everywhere except its contents. A little customization of fonts, backgrounds and color options would be nicer, just as they are doing great in Twitter. I'm not talking about full scale HTML edit of Posterous pages, just some simple tweaks to make it your own style statement.

I hope Posterous devs are listening.

At this point, I really can't afford Apple merchandises but tinkering with them seemed a great idea to me. And now, touching and feeling them in real life is also impossible for definite reasons, all that's left is those Getting Started videos from Apple website. I did not really looked into them much seriously until yesterday, when I was searching for what more to download using my BSNL Broadband connection. Incidentally I was on Apple.com for some reason and my eyes got set on those videos. Downloaded them today morning and just now after returning home I experienced them. In a single word, they are magnificent. I did not see some getting started videos they way they did it ever.

I will seriously consider Mac OS X in future and also seriously ask for macs when someone wants to gift me something. A MBP will be just great for me, off course when I get it for free.

Microsoft recently came with the announcement of Windows Mobile 6.5 in MWC yesterday and it looks good from a first sight and also feels way ahead of its previous versions. Ahem, "... way ahead of its previous versions"? Not at all folks, Win Mo is just got a new look and some tweaks here and there, that's all. I wonder what's MS is doing all the way since January 2007, when Apple announced their revolutionary iPhone for the first time. This is 2009 and there is still not support for Capacitive Touchscreens? Adding to our agony, no update Media Player, weirdly small onscreen keyboard in IE, no direct Zune integration, what the hell is this?

I was one of those people who ran after trying Windows 7 Beta (Build 7000) like 'headless chickens' and I don't want to say that I'm unimpressed. I even posted about a quick look in Windows 7 Beta's plus and minus points in my website after using it for a month. But now, I'm also an avid user of Windows Media Player and don't bother looking into alternatives when I'm running Windows. WMP used manage my music library better than anything else and it's nice interface was always a boon to use, but that was before WMP 12 stepped into the scene.

Apart from the MP3 corruption goof-up in the first place, WMP 12 Beta looked nice to me. A change of taste from Vista's blacky to Windows Live-esque interface is really nice and easy one eyes. I've got a collection of 30+ albums on my PC now and I added them all to the library. Hell broke loose, pigs flew and magma froze - WMP behaves so slowly now that even finding a song by hand from 50 vinyl records is faster than switching from one to another in WMP. It hangs for a moment and then stutters to start playing a song, sometimes even forgets Album Arts. Playing mkv files is another story, even CoreAVC cannot boost FPS in 720p videos while VLC plays them fine.

I know it's still on BETA but the way it is going on and so sluggish compared to rest of the new Windows 7 Beta, MS needs serious attention on this one.

Dana Wollman from www.laptopmag.com tried to convince us by reviewing IE8 RC1 and commenting that it smashed both Firefox 3 and surprisingly Google Chrome. In her own words,

The last time we tested IE 8, it was often—but not always—faster than Firefox 3. This time around, it blew Firefox out of the water, along with Google Chrome

How flattering, I wonder. Firefox 3 and now Google Chrome sports two of the fastest available mainstream rendering engine on this planet, while rickety Trident continues to grow on patches rather than a complete overhaul. And then there are Minefield 3.1 and 3.2Pre (the one I'm using now), and the later likes to beat almost anything in vicinity. Javascript rendering engines, Tracemonkey and Squirelfish are going to take over the world soon. IE8 does not even stand a chance when pitted against this, so much for beating Firefox and Google Chrome.

It's been two loooong years that I am using my old Sony Ericsson W700i. It was quite value for money on those days and I was deliciously feeding on it's walkman capabilities. Sound quality is pretty decent for it's price and bundled HPM-70 headphones are still doing a good job if not great. But with the advent of iPhone, everything changed. Almost everyone want to touch a phone now, rather than only using it. And sadly it seems that I'm also a member of the league now.

But this time, I divided my touching pleasure into two different areas. Seriously, there is no real competitor of iPhone as of now, (barring the yet-to-be-released Palm Pre) everything else sucks big time compared to that. Win Mo sucks and it would be better not to speak of Symbian's touch update (like that one on 5800 Xpressmusic). I did experience the iPhone interface and it was freaking awesome. But considering everything regarding iPhone, its bloody price actually, one should really look elsewhere except those who have got a cash cow at their back. Now, I don't want to miss the awesomeness that iPhone have, still a cheaper option is needed. Behold for the mighty iPod Touch 2G, it's got the fastest hardware ever in all of the iPhones and iPod Touches and quite spacious than that iPod 3G. I have set my mind for 32GB model (best VFM) but since the required sum is yet to set in my pocket, I'll have to wait for June/July to come.

Now, there's rumour of something all new Zune-esque Windows Mobile 6.5 in the works and it's probably going to be released Q3 this year. Then there's Palm Pre (although I don't like the phone's look and feel) who've got a great UI as well and also dark horse Android. I really liked the G1's interface and the way it manages everything on a phone, just waiting for phones with better hardware and look'n'feel to come in the market. So, it is evident that there's no alternative of waiting for the time being. But I can foresee that a real lot of fireworks is coming on recent months.