The Gong Show

The Gong Show is dead. Long live The Gong Show. In short, I got bored with Wordpress, so I’m moving my blog to Tumblr.

Part of the reasoning behind my decision was the Google seems to really dislike my blog. It used to rank #1 for all kinds of vanity searches. Now, it’s still in the index, but Google drives almost zero traffic. I think I got blacklisted somewhere along the way. So, I’m not bringing my domain with me (thought I could, because Tumblr’s domain mapping rocks).

Speaking of Tumblr rocking: This admin interface is beautiful. And I love the template scripting language. It took just a dash of CSS to make my template feel very ME-ish… much easier than messing around with Wordpress templates.

Also, I completely purged my Tumblr account because I wanted to start fresh. I had imported 1000s of posts via RSS in my old Tumblr account that I didn’t want in this new version of The Gong Show. So, if you think you’re currently following me on Tumblr, you’re not. Re-follow me if you want the latest on what I’m up to.

And, if you’re viewing this through the web (not RSS), then learn more about the piping plover in my background. Best beach bird ever.

I’m going to London for Seedcamp and am interested in meeting other members of the web tech community there. If you’ve been following this blog from the UK and are interested in chatting (or want to make an intro to someone I should meet), ping me.

Google launched a browser: Chrome. I downloaded and it and took it for a spin this afternoon. Here are my first impressions.

HolyCrapItIsFast! Seriously, it starts up fast, tabs open and close fast, browsing is snappier and more responsive. I wish I had some solid way to quantify what I am experiencing, rather than just qualitative anecdotal evidence… But, simply put, if you want to browse the internet faster than I recommend you try Chrome.

They put the tabs and the address bar in the correct order. Hooray! It’s a small detail, but I have always been irked by the inconsistent layout of tabs being below the address bar, instead of above the address bar where they belong. Why are tabs supposed to be above the address bar? Because moving to a new tab changes the contents of the address bar. So, when you change a tab, everything affected by the change should reside below the tabs. Laying it out in this order makes tabs more consistent with the real-world metaphor of folder tabs after which tabs in GUIs are modeled.

I do have a few nits to pick:

• The keyboard shortcut ctrl-tab does not go to the last tab you were on. Instead, it goes to the next tab in the list. This is silly. ctrl-tab should behave the same way that alt-tab behaves in OS environment. Firefox also makes this mistake, but since Firefox has a add-on architecture, a kind hacker fixed this problem by creating the Last Tab add-on. That brings me to my next nitpick.
• There is no add-on architecture on day one. This is a no-brainer feature that I’m sure the Chrome team will add quickly, but until they build an add-on architecture, they are missing out on a huge opportunity to leverage talented developers’ desires to scratch their personal itches and extend the browser for all users. Due to Chrome’s missing add-on architecture, Firefox’s library of add-ons will be a significant advantage for Firefox in the near-term.
• Adding new search engines is too hard. To add a search engine in Firefox, all I have to do is right click on the search box I want to add and then click the “add a keyword for this search…” menu item and fill out the dialog that pops up. By contrast, to add a search engine in Chrome, I have to go to “options” -> click “manage” under “default search” -> then click “add”. Not only is it more clicks, but it’s a significantly higher cognitive load on the user. There must be an easier way to add search engines… if not, then I’m sure the Chrome team will fix this issue quickly.

Overall grade: A-

Thanksgiving used to be known as the holiday then you go home and install Firefox on your parents’ PC. Now Thanksgiving will be known as the holiday when you go home and install Chrome on your parents’ PC.