WillShattuck.com

Is Google Chrome the long lost Google OS?  That is what some are saying.  Others are saying that this is just Google’s attempt to fully take over the Internet market share.

So I decided to give Chrome a walk through.  First, my preferred browser Firefox.  Recently, I encountered some issues with viewing PDFs in Firefox 3.0.  Chrome’s arrival on the scene is accidentally well timed.

Chrome’s main page provides an indication that it will help you browse a bit faster.  It presents several gray blocks with an annotation saying something to the extent of "As you browse sites, your most frequently visited sites will be shown here."

As you can see I have recently visited a few sites tonight.  When I visited my website, I was almost immediately prompted to install Adobe Flash.  Plugin installation was flawless.  My only concern was the installation progress was a bit hidden behind the scenes.  It may be that I am a progress freak, but that’s ok.

The browsing experience is, so far, the same as with Firefox.  My coworker noticed that some sites take up more of the screen in Chrome than in Internet Explorer.  In my experience I have noticed that sites open a bit faster, and pages are rendered a bit more quickly.

Configurablity is minimal at this point.  Some more techy/geeky options are available under the "Minor Tweaks" and "Under the Hood" tabs.

Overall, I am please so far with Chrome and its performance.  Most likely I will continue to use Firefox as my primary browser at work.  At home, well, since I have a fresh install on this laptop I think I will continue to use Google Chrome as my primary browser.  No better way to figure out how a new product works than to use it daily.

Hello Shelfari,

I’m sure your service is a good one, but I have recently had a bad experience as an unknowing recipient of three pieces of Shelfari spam.

Apparently a friend recently joined Shelfari and Shelfari must have gone through his address book and emailed everyone in his address book this "Hey Look At This" message.  I’m sure the idea was to let people know about Shelfari, but when one of the addresses in this person’s list was a mailing list of seven people, well… let’s just say a couple of the people wanted me to mark it as spam in our corporate environment.

I would like to suggest that you discontinue this "service" you offer new Shelfari users.  It appears to be more disruptive than helpful.  I myself happen to be in this person’s address book under three different email addresses.  Guess what happened?  I received the same email three times.  That constitutes Spam in my opinion.

So, would you please refrain from enabling the function that scans a person’s email address book and send out mass emails purporting to be the actual sender (which we know was actually Shelfari’s server)?  Technically, Shelfari has just spoofed the from email address and *is* technically spamming the recipients since they did not ask for any information from Shelfari.

If I happen to receive any more Shelfari messages to either my personal or corporate accounts, I will not no other option, but to mark Shelfari as a known spammer in our database, which will then, unfortunately, be shared with other people as well.

Anyway, I believe I have made my point.  Thank you for your attention to this matter. 

Sincerely,
Will Shattuck

12 Days of Christmas with Style sung by Straight No Chaser

Apparently, AT&T has changed its Terms of Service and can terminate or suspend your account if you say bad things about them.  From the Boing Boing post that brought this to my attention:

AT&T has brought down new Terms of Service for its network customers. From now on, AT&T can terminate your connection for conduct that "tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries." So AT&T customers aren’t allowed to write/podcast/vlog critical things about AT&T, its billing-practices, or its cooperation with illegal NSA wiretapping, on pain of having their connections disconnected.

Here is a link to AT&T’s new Terms of Service.  The section in question is 5.1(c).  Read it for yourself. 

Recently, I had been contemplating moving from Clearwire’s service to DSL or Cable to get more consistent speeds.  However, I don’t think I will be making that move now.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, this is something that AT&T is allowed to do.  We need to vote with our dollars if you don’t like these terms of service.

Congrats, Wil, on keynoting PAX. I don’t know much about Penny Arcade yet, but I’m going to check out this site. 

So you want to sell this to your wife huh?  They are getting you a Wii so would that be considered payment? ;)  You can also come from the angle of, “Well I wanted to be a writer, and now I’m writing a keynote address.”

Well, maybe all these ideas stink, but it’s still cool.

Congrats, Wil.

WWdN: In Exile: so i’m going to be the keynote speaker at PAX . . .

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