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.

Maintaining any business requires some way to track expenses, income, etc.  A while ago I found Cite CRM on Sourceforge.net.  I first encountered it at v.0.1.0 I believe.  A few weeks ago I found it was at v.0.2.0 so I figured I would try it out.

The interface is pretty well laid out and easy to understand.  Add a customer, create a work order, close and invoice.  I did find one problem though.  I couldn’t create a schedule in connection with a work order.  The scheduling allows you to plan when you will be either on-site for work, or scheduling future jobs.  However, I kept getting an error saying "Start and End time can’t be the same".  I posted on the forum at the Sourceforge site, but the project apparently has been abandoned.

A few weeks later I posted just in case someone knew how to fix it.  I hadn’t made the time to debug the PHP code yet.  Someone did post the fix (add quotes around a variable assignment) and sure enough it worked.  I wanted to submit my changes, but the owner of the project has apparently abandoned it.  The code and documentation are superb.  I can clearly understand the author’s intentions and the code comments provide direction on existing code and future enhancements.

I decided to spend some time working on the few grammar and spelling errors in the install program.  I also rewrote the README file as well as adding a changelog.txt file.  So now I’m offering these modifications to anyone who wants to try them out.  Please use the email address in the README file or these comments to point out bugs.

Download Links:
- citecrm.v.0.2.001.zip
- citecrm.v.0.2.001.tar.gz

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

Train Signal is offering free Cisco CCNA training in exchange for blogging about your experience.  I have submitted my application in hopes of helping them out.  This would be an incredible opportunity, both in the technical and writing fields.  If you recall, I previously posted about getting into writing.  I’m doing some, but not enough.  Blogging twice a week would definitely give me a boost in that writing effort.

Train Signal: I am an excellent candidate as I can write clearly and I yearn for knowledge.  I am a self taught computer technician who was a music teacher so I can follow through on projects and tasks.  I am currently a Senior IS Technician and junior Server and Network administrator.  I also manage help desk traffic and prioritize incoming support requests as well as assisting my co-workers with these requests.  Thank you for your consideration.

Well, it’s all in the hands of the judges.  I’ll let everyone know the results.  Take care.