Installing Google Chrome on Ubuntu

Google Chrome is by far my favorite browser, Ubuntu is by far my favorite OS. Installing Chrome on Ubuntu is not so hard, visit the Chrome website, download the appropriate .deb package, and install. The problem, there is no auto update support.

The solution, simply install the PPA for Google Chrome and you'll be good to go:


wget -q -O - https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub | sudo apt-key add - sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google.list'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install

Default Google search with Linux Mint

So I am fairly new to Linux, and am LOVING it. I mean sure, there are lots of things that are different, a few things I don't like as much.. but overall, I am really impressed. I started with Ubuntu as it seems to be the most popular distro out there. Then I found Linux Mint and knew there was something special here.

One of my biggest annoyances at this point is how Linux Mint adds in it's own custom "stuff" to the standard Google search. I don't really mind that they add in advertising to help support their software efforts... I mean, this is really amazing... but honestly their ads are huge, the search results are not standard Google results.

So I did what every good user does... I googled the easiest way to fix the issue of non standard search results. The problem was, I didn't really find anything that really worked.

So what is the solution? Simple, replace most of the google.xml found in your file system with one found in the standard Firefox download. So here you go...

1. Download Firefox from getfirefox.org.
2. Extract the files to an easy to access location, such as your desktop.
3. Search for all google.xml files in your filesystem.
4. Compare the content of each of those files with the one from your recent download, making note of each one that has a similar structure.
5. Copy the google.xml from the download over each of the files you noted from step 4. You may need to run the cp command as root (e.g. sudo cp ~/Desktop/firefox/searchplugins /usr/lib/firefox-3.6/searchplugins).

That's all. Hope this helps you out!

New Phone!!! - T-Mobile's G1

I am happy to say, after a year and a half of anticipation, I have just received my very own T-Mobile G1 running the Oh-so-awesome Android OS.

I have played with it for about 6 hours now, and I have to say that I am REALLY impressed! So many people are trying to compare the G1 with the iPhone... Ok, so the G1 is not quite as glamours as the iPhone... but what it lacks in sex apeal, it gains in openness!

So far, this phone has outperformed pretty much every other phone I have ever used (okay, that's not saying too much). It's equipped with a 528Mhz ARM processor by Quailcomm, 256MB of Rom, 192MB or Ram, a 3.2" touch-screen, Quad-band reciever, Bluetooth, 3.2 megapixle camera, WiFi, GPS, electronic compass, and so much more!

It's fully integrated with Google -- GMail, Calendar, Contacts, Maps, etc!

And already has a stockpile of very intregueing applications, many of which are completely free!

LOVE IT!!!

There's a new sheriff in town...

Google has announced yesterday that it will be releasing a new web browser... Google Chrome...

What does this mean for the Web Browser industry? More competition... And from a Giant like Google, it's sure to be very interesting!

So what can a new browser do for us? well for the user, it means a cleaner interface with some feature and performance boosts.... for us developers, it means real sandboxing, true garbage collection, significant JavaScript performance boosts including compiled code before it runs, better security, and even the ability to run in a browser window that is stripped of all things "browser" allowing our "Browser Apps" to feel more like "Apps" and less like "browser".

I gladly welcome this new arrival and look forward to the innovation that Google will bring to the market!

Here's a link to their blog post:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html

Google is once again pushing the limits...

Google has recently released in limited beta a SDK/App Engine/Framework called the Google App Engine, to which you can develop web based applications using the same infrastructure that software like GMail, Google Calendar, and the other Google Apps have been created on, and then host them on the Google servers... their SDK/API is pre-built to handle scaling and heavy traffic loads (up to 5M pageviews/mo with a free account) and increasing storage needs (500mb on free account)... also they give direct access to Google mail API, Google file storage, Google "Datastore" (their db system) and plan on taping into others like calendar... Also, you can use your own custom domain names to point to your apps... Finally, Google is allowing you to use their authentication system for authenticating your users! No more asking users to create yet another login for yet another web application!

Now I'm not saying this is better than hosting your own server, but it is pretty stink'en cool!

One downside is that it currently supports only Python... I might be learning a new programming language! =)