Thoughts about Chrome

There is a lot buzz about Chrome - Googles new Web browser. What I don't understand is why is there so much buzz about a piece of software. When a new version of Opera is released, in my opinion the most innovative browser of the last years, almost nobody cares. Now Google releases a browser and everybody is going nuts.
I want to comment on some statements about Chrome (This will not be technical):

• Chrome is a Windows killer: Despite the fact that I don't think the people at Google hate Microsoft, I think Chrome is just a new browser that gives users more opportunities. Firefox did not kill Microsoft either. Just to have a really powerful JavaScript engine doesn't make the choice of the OS redundant. By the way Microsoft is a dying giant anyway.

• Google wants a big chunk of the mobile browser market: I think Google's growth strategy heavily relies on the mobile browser market. As a result for them it is very important that people have easy access to the mobile web and a good experience using it. Therefore a nice integration between Chrome on the desktop and Android/mobile Chrome would be helpful.

• Google never hit a second home run: Which application from Google you use all the time? It is not Orkut, is it? Google is mostly late when they releasing a new application and normally not the first to develop something really new. Although things like Android look very promising they have yet to prove that they can be successful. The same applies to Chrome.

Personally I think on the desktop PC Chrome will have a hard time competing with the Internet Explorer. Just because a lot of people are to lazy to change their habits. Actually I would say it is more likely that Firefox users will try out Chrome than IE users. But the release of the new browser means that Google is putting pressure on the market leader what should be a good thing for us customers.

UPDATE: More about Google's mobile Strategie

Lastdocs Plugin For gEdit

The Lastdocs plugin exposes a simple dialog that shows you the last opened files which can be edited with gEdit. It is inspired by Scribes a very promising editor that is in an early development stage.

What is the advantage over the recent files menu entry?

The the Lastdocs plugin is better suited to my workflow. I just press <Ctrl><Shift><o>,

the Lastdocs dialog pops up and I can use the arrow keys to choose a file. There doesn't need any mouse action to be involved.

How can I download the plugin?

Download the following file:

lastdocs-0.1.tar.gz

Deflate it and put the files in

~/.gnome2/gedit/plugins/

and activate the plugin.
If you have any ideas for improvement, don't hesitate to post them.

Regards,
Marco

ToDo-List script

My todolist script is inspired (but is much simpler) by the todolist plugins for gedit from Nando Vieira and Alexandre Silva, that were already based on the TODO list Textmate bundle.

What can it do for me?

It helps you to track information posted in the comments of a source/text file. I don't think that is something special but maybe it is useful for somebody.

How do I use it?

Just put markers like

NOTE [Your text here.]

in your text file. Allowed markers are

NOW,TODO,FIXME,IMPROVE,CHANGE,OPTIMIZE,NOTE,DONE,

but you can easily change that in the sourcecode of todo_gtk.py to what ever you want. Start the script with

[python] [path to file/]todo_gtk.py [your text file].

The following window should appear.

If you have the gedit_todo_handler installed (see README for details) the links should open the file in gedit at the position of the marker. The script is best used with the External Tools plugin for gedit (again see README for details).

How can I download the script?

You can either use bazaar:

bzr branch http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~macco-gmx/+junk/todo_gtk

or download the following files:

1. README


2. gedit_todo_handler


3. todo_gtk.py

If you have any ideas for improvement, don't hesitate to post them

Regards,
Marco

Introduction

Hello my name is Marco. This blog will be telling you about my learning experience of programming and web design.

Why another blog about programming?

What is the reason for this blog? Actually there are several reasons:

1. The first reason is, that I want to improve my computer science skills. I believe that writing about my learning experience will leverage my improvement on computer knowledge.


2. The second point is feedback on my thoughts. I don't have to many people around me that are also interested in programming and computers. So it is difficult for me to learn from other people about this particular topic.


3. My third intention is the improvement of gEdit. In the last days I was writing two plugins and a todolist script for developing with gEdit. So I want people to hear about it and ask them for help and their opinion on certain problems.


4. My last point is, that I think through writing a blog in English (I am German by the way) I will improve on my language skills.

I hope you will read some interesting thoughts in this blog. I am excited to hear from you.

Regards,
Marco