wassim maouad . illustration . visual arts . web 2.0

Ok. Yes. I know. Google is starting to look like some kind of unsatiable monster. Chrome, Google’s browser, is now out as a beta version for Windows (Mac version is still in development).

1, 2… 3, I downloaded it, installed it (it took 2mn), and tested it. The speed is hardly believable. The interface is much more responsive than any other Google software.

Now, some say “Google Chrome is here to crush Mozilla’s Firefox”. It shouldn’t. But it SURELY should encourage those poor Internet Explorer users to dump the worst browser on Earth, and try something new, clean, fast, secure and stable.

Google just added another good browser to the list of good browsers! Now the choice is wide: Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari, Opera’s… Opera, and Google’s Chrome. It’s time for Internet Explorer to bow to its audience, and just leave the scene… Stubbornness is not a quality.

Until Google’s Chrome can be extended with a choice of hundreds of plug-ins, Firefox is not yet fully replaceable. Chrome is open-source, and took a lot from both Firefox and Opera. It features many important upgrades a browser’s architecture. Let’s just hope the hypothesis that Google IS a branch of the CIA is just a paranoid supposition…

My life changed when I discovered Freemind, a mind-mapping software written in Java, which makes it platform agnostic (it works on all OSses with Java installed).

Its minimal interface, rich contextual menus (when you right-click on things) and very intuitive keyboard hot keys makes it easy to learn, and even easier to use.

The map you end up with can be exported in a multitude of formats: HTML/xHTML with or without Javascript, PDF, images (PNG, JPG), Open Office Document, and the one format that’s likely to be underrated by most: SVG, an XML based vector graphics format that can open so many doors to injecting the map in other applications.

You can plan a website, a company or a whole dictatorship without a sweat; it’s a very useful tool.

Mozilla is running for the world record of the most downloaded software in 24 hours :)

I gratefully did my part with an immense pleasure, downloading the still warm FF3 on my 3 systems and on a couple of willing others’…

Browse safely! ;)

I have been using OOo on Mac OS X for quite a while, via the X11 windowing system; in spite of all the claims that X11 is “compatible, fast, and fully integrated with Mac OS X”, the thing was a real cow, heavy and sluggish.

Now that the Aqua build is out (beta, yup), I have installed it with great relief: Open Office is now “compatible, fast, and fully integrated with Mac OS X”, and seems to be running reliably.

I simply and stupidly LOVE it :)

Ok, I admit I do not use it half as much as I use FireFTP, but what the shawarma, if you need a light stand-alone, intuitive, super-simple FTP client for Mac OS X, and do not require to have the double local / server views (with Cyberduck, the local view is simply the Finder), just, you know, just get it… It can’t be any simpler…