Cloud computing: Internet based operating system. Can it work?

Netbooks have been a big hit ever since ASUS come out with the Eee PC 701. Since then they have evolved into net-tops and net-books with optical drives and touch screens. So what is the next step?

Curious with this question I thought of Cloud computing. Cloud computing is uploading you files onto some companies servers and accessing whenever you please. I use Eee Storage. So if you combine an operating system with this what do you get?

Cloud OS… Well that’s what I call it. It is your hole operating system through the internet. Your desktop is you internet. This OS is still in development but I can see some potential threats. Like Hackers of course. Of someone like Obama gets this (highly doubt it but go along with it okay) hackers will have a feeding frenzy.

But yeah I am currently looking into this subject, tell me what you think. Embrace me with your wonderful comments.

Pidgin Instant messaging client: Reviewed

I have been using pidgin ever since the day I got sick of Windows Live crashing on me and my conversations. It is simple and easy to use. But what is the latest and greatest version like. I will be reviewing v2.5.8.

After you go thought the “next and “I accept frenzy” you are presented with this.

As you can see I have no friends. But anyway, notice how simple and straight forward it is. I also noticed I wasn’t bombarded with “Live today” windows that usually pops up. So far so good. But what about a conversation?

After frantically texting my buds telling them to get their ass online I could test it. Again the simplicity follows through. You just have a menu for Font, Insert and Smile! You can also do files transfers, I won’t need to explain how to get there because it is so simple.

Positives

1. Really simple
2. Really simple
3. Great for people on low end machines.
4. It only uses 12MB ram.
5. You can use every provider from MSN to XMPP.

Negatives

1. Doesn’t have all the flash theme line windows live.

Overall

If you are sick and tied of Windows Live I Strongly recommend this product. Why? It does the job that it is intended for. There is no pop ups and it is stable. I give it a 9/10 and a space on my Recommended Software Page. You can download it here.

Apple really dislike IE7… Picture to prove it…

Click on image to make it viewable… Is Apple putting down IE7 or what. But they probably call it telling the truth.

Always read the fine print… You will be surprised.

Do I recommend blogging?

Do you have a lot of thoughts? Or you want to improve your writing skill? There are many reasons why one might consider blogging. But often the problem is not what you are going to blog about it is usually finding the motivation to create one… If that is untrue I am a freak. I wanted to create a blog for ages but I always bailed out on the verification code.

I absolutely love blogging. Heck, it even replaced gaming in my life. That’s right I gave up COD5 for blogging. But why? Well for starters their comes a time in a gamers life were he/she realises how much time they are wasting. Some sooner than others. I still game… but not hardcore… not 3am to 3am…   See what I mean pathetic hey.

So if you are reading this post and don’t have a blog give it ago or if you do have one and lack motivation to do another post. Just wrestle up them thoughts in your mind and put them to the cyberspace!

I LOVE WRITING!!! I LOVE BLOGGING!!!!!

Bye Bye wordpress: I will be in control soon enough.

If you haven’t guessed it by now I will be soon enough have my website controlled by me rather than wordpress.com. This is fantastic! I will have full control of what I want to do not what wordpress will let me do.

Well thats the update for now, take care,

James Hill

Google Picasa 3 review: Organize

Organize, Create, edit and share. That is the first things that come to my mind when I think of this product and when I viewed the webpage for the download.

I have been using this program for about two weeks now, to edit and organize my images. Two of the four things they claim it can do.

Google Picasa 3 has been designed for the people that want a free program that will edit their photo’s and video’s as well as creating video’s and unique desktop wallpapers. Oh and I forgot to mention you can upload them as well using the ‘Blog this’ feature and the old fashion ‘upload button’, which will upload it to the Web albums. Another unique feature for the price.

After 5 mins on playing around with the interface I was able to come up with this within seconds. It is true penguin love free software.

Google’s Picasa 3 is extremely easy to use, everything you will want to use is in a simple resource box.

The layout of the program is also very straight forward, it makes me wish that more people designing free software would do this.

Click on to see full size.

Google Picasa 3 definitely does the job it is intended for. Quick photo and video editing. Google have yet again struck the nail right on the head. Although I wish they included more features with the text and the ability to Photoshop like affects would have been nice.

Positives

1. Free
2. Quick and easy
3. You can have fun with it.
4. Great for beginners

Negatives

1. Lack of Text effects.
2. Limited things you can do
3. Blog this feature only supports Blogger.

Overall

When rating this product I had to remember there aren’t to many things like this for free. So that played a big part on this rating I am about to announce. I awarded it an 7/10 because the lack of text effects drove me crazy. But it is still a great piece of software.

Google Chrome 2: Is it ready to face Safari 4’s mighty RAM eating roar?

Google Chrome, Google’s version of a web browser. It was a hit I loved it and so did many others. Sure it had its minor problems but, nothing is perfect. Google begged to differ. They have come out with all tabs blazing on Google Chrome 2. So I decide to review it up against the RAM eating beast Apples Safari 4.

Safari 4 has dominated all of its competition I have tested so far. It almost double Firefox 3.5’s  score and sprinted past IE8 and Opera. So lest see what Google’s offering can spit out.

3844 that is the best score we have seen from any other web browser… apart from Safari 4’s 4177. But as said in my previous review, I do not had out the winning title to the browser with the best score. I also judge on the amount of RAM used. This is were things got interesting…

Here is Safari 4’s

and here is Google Chrome 2’s

There are three instances on Google side which adds up to be around 44.55MB (remember 1MB is equal to 1024KB), so Google’s offering is much faster than Firefox so it takes the title in the Low end PC bracket and because it is only 333 point slower than Safari 4 and uses less RAM I also have to give Google’s Chrome 2 the Overall Best Web Browser Title.

My computer just BSOD

Okay I just got a BSOD so it while be a couple of hours before I get my next post up. Sorry.

Take care,

James Hill

Safari 4 vs. Firefox 3.5 vs Opera 9.64

Now this is going to be an interesting review. I have used everyone of this browsers in their previous builds, so am particularly keen to get this underway.

Now since I already had Safari 4 I had to install the others. Firefox as per normal installed really quickly, but as for Opera it took a bit to get going. Hopefully it does not get beat by IE8. Sorry I am not a big fan of Internet Explorer.

For my browser tests I am using Futuremarks Pacekeeper Browser benchmark. A very unique tool.

The first right out of Pacekeepers oven was Safari 4 with a score of 4177. Because it had raised the bar yesterday with IE8 I knew Firefox and Opera would have to be quick.

It was pointed out to me yesterday that Safari is a RAM hungry beast, so to make my tests fair I took a look at how much RAM they each chewed. All these results are based on idle. (0%-5% CPU usage).

That is a lot of RAM. That is what we called ridiculous… But if you have plenty of RAM you should be right.

That’s better.

That’s bad but not as bad as Safari.

Okay now onto the results…

If you click on the image you will get a better view.

As we can all see Safari 4 is still the fastest Browser out there. But you have to have to the RAM to go with it. Firefox is a very good browser. I personally would recommend it, because it doesn’t use a lot of RAM and it is still quick. Opera did beat IE8 but it still likes a lot of RAM. So who wins?

I am not handing the winning title to anyone. There are really two winners. For people with a older system and not a whole lot of RAM go for Firefox but if you have the RAM get Safari 4. As for Opera, I feel it is getting better the ideas are good but it need the speed to go with it.

But wait I forgot Chrome, So I will have another review coming up today to see how polished Chrome version 2 really is. Will it make Safari use all the RAM I have got? I hope not.

Windows 7: My triumph, something that makes me love PC again.

I have been using XP for ages, since it got released I guess. I skipped Vista, I don’t really know why my PC would eat it alive like Windows 7. But anyway onto the post.

As you all know I had previous troubles with Windows 7. That problem has been fixed. It turns out it was the hard drive I was installing it onto. How did I get to this problem? Trial and error… A PC users best friend.

I simply tried another hard drive, instinct I guess. I worked. So yeah I am currently using RC1 full time now. All I can say is “it about time.” Sure it looks like Vista and feels like XP but I feel it is a breath of fresh air. I would still like to get a Mac though.

Well there’s an update for you on my windows 7 troubles.

Take care,

James Hill