Chrome! Do we need another Internet Browser?

Google is making a compelling reason for using yet another web browser.  After reading the comic book that is available that describes generally the reason that Google brought out a new browser product makes for a compelling reason to use their program.  The one negative that I've heard so far is that when you save your passwords that you are typing into the system for accessing secure areas, they can be easily viewed in the password area.  They are not encrypted, they're sitting there and standard text format for all the world to view who has access to your desktop system.

However, Google touts the new security functions that are built into the browser that disallows any cross talk of information between tabbed windows or from your local storage sources.  Each tabbed window is maintained as a separate thread which allows the processing of Web-based applications to occur simultaneously without interfering with processes occur in another tab.  You can easily detach a tab to separate a browser window from the current window that it resides in.  If you're doing a lot of research this makes it very easy to display information side by side from two separate tabs at the same time.

The default home page shows the nine most visited websites with thumbnails, in nine most recent book marks, and a quick search far too quickly jump to information pages that you may be looking for.  It allows you to add a quick link bar at the top of the screen for those sites that you want to be able to quickly get to on a daily basis.

Another new feature that I like is the ability to create an application shortcut that you can store on your desktop, quick launch bar or  start menu. (see picture at right).  This will display a very clean interface with only the site application in the window making it appear as though it is a true program application.  This delivers greater screen real estate for that application and make it easier to work with the online application as well.  If you're an avid user of programs like Google's document applications like Blogger, Calendar, Docs, Gmail etc..., You may make great use of this feature.

As in most applications there are many different features that can be accessed through easy to learn keyboard shortcuts.  Be sure to check these out. If you plan use this application it will help you to become more efficient with it.  The address bar that sits atop the normal Google Chrome window simplifies your Internet experience by doubling as a search box.  To open a new tab click on the plus icon next to the last open tab. You can reorder your tabs by clicking and dragging them to a new position and as I have mentioned above, you can't drag that tab completely out of the current window and create a new window for that tab where you drag a drop that tab. Because the tab windows are running as separate threads you have complete crash protection between tabbed window sites. To browse the web without storing a record of the session you can open a window in incognito mode by clicking on the page menu and choosing new incognito window. A new window will open that won't save and information from the Internet session. For more feature information go to Google Chrome's Feature Page.  If you want to download go to Google Chrome's Download Page.

Look for updates as we push this new program to it's limits.

250GB! Come on now Comcast! You had better rethink this!

Comcast is planning on instituting a 250GB limit to the amount of data users can send and receive beginning October 1st. I have received my email from them so we know this is what they are planning to do. Why do I think this is a problem? Let me show you an example of a heavy internet user, me, and how I compare to their model of an average user which they say never even comes close to 10% of the 250GB limit! Really?

Your Monthly Allowance:		250GB
Let's start with my new hobby that I have embraced so grandly. I have gotten a new digital SLR camera that takes pictures at a 10 megapixel resolution. Currently I am only storing in JPEG format but I will be collecting the images in raw soon and this number will increase dramatically. I am taking about 500 pictures per week and storing to my network drive. These images are automatically being transferred for backup to my Amazon S3 off site storage account. This backup is using bandwidth. Average picture size is 2.5mb x 500 x 4 weeks per month.	2.5*500*4=5,000	245GB
Now I am also taking about 1/4 of those pictures and posting them to a gallery account on line so that would use: 2.5 x 125 x 4	2.5*125*4=1,250	243.75
Still have lots of bandwidth. Now, about once a month I am taking some video which probably averages about 2gb per month throughout the year on average. December, April, May and June seems to be the heaviest months. On these months I will take about an hour's worth of video which is equivalent to 5gb. Again, I am backing this up to Amazon S3 and posting most of this to my galleries. Since we are talking about worse case scenarios, this would be about 10gb of data being posted	10GB	233.75
I have started watching a lot of my favorite television shows on HULU because it is simpler and these presentations have fewer and shorter commercial breaks. A typical 1 hour show (40-48 minutes real time) is using about 250mb per show. Let's say that I am watching 5 of these per week. (so what happens in a family of four, with kids that watch 3 hours of TV per day, 7 days per week? 3*7*250*30=157,500. There's a chunk!)	250*5*4=5,000 Or for a typical family that accesses their entertainment around 150GB	83.75

Most other browsing, email and even remote access to work probably wouldn't amount to much. But there are some people using the system rather heavily that I wouldn't call abusive that could come very close to Comcast's cap. Add things like movie downloads, High Definition Movies can be 8GB or more per movie, streaming music from online radio stations, music and podcast downloads from music sources like iTunes, Amazon, Audible and Microsoft Marketplace. The Internet is becoming a big source for our daily entertainment and even though Comcast doesn't think this cap can be reached easily in a true digitally oriented home it can be pretty easy to come close to that cap every month.

Here's the icing on the cake! Comcast is not even going to give you a method of seeing where you are on your usage cap! They leave that up to you. However, if you exceed it they will call you up and tell you that you have exceeded it and if you exceed it again you will be cut off for a year. If this is the only service available to you then this is plain unacceptable! I know that when I signed up for service Comcast was touting unlimited usage. Where has that gone?