cpjackson.co.uk

A few posts earlier on this blog – I was aching for an EEE with a 3G sim slot… It looked like they were going to add one – with the sim card solder-points on the new 901 model – but as far as I know – they haven’t got there yet.

But the good news is: PC World – AMAZINGLY – have managed to deliver the product that no-one else could… A mini notebook with a sim card slot!

.. with sim card slot!!!

Price is listed as £349.99 – specs are:

• Intel Atom N270 (Same as EEE 901 and MSI Wind/Advent 4211)
• 1GB RAM
• 160GB HD
• Windows XP 

I’ve been reading about Google Chrome for a while now — and have been patiently waiting for it’s release on the google site… Anyway – to all those waiting: It’s out now!!

I’m a web developer – and have to keep up with the latest developments. I’ve got to say – when I heard Google were going to release a new browser – I thought “Oh no – not another browser to test!”… But after reading about what they aim to do in their browser ‘comicbook’ – I have to say I was more than interested!

I’m not a big supporter of Google — they’ve pissed me off multiple times… One time they chucked me off adwords for no reason – and took all my £30 earnings.. I appealed – waited 2 weeks – but they said “Nope – we’ve decided you can’t have your account back”. Other things have happened – which I won’t bore you about.

But… The ideas behind Google Chrome are to force more competition in the browser-wars… IE and Firefox *do* seem very used to their position… IE8 is failing the acid-tests and neither firefox or IE seem to get much closer than 85% EVER!!

Anyway – I’ve been using Google Chrome for a couple of hours – and I’m more than impressed. It seems to perform really well… I’ve had one or two unexplained ‘pauses’ – but the default new tab page (AKA your fave sites) is a really good idea.

I’ve got to say the overall feeling is that Chrome is a bit faster – and considering this is a beta release it makes you wonder what can be done with a bit of tweaking!! The designs are very basic – but a nice looking interface will come with time – and obviously it’s been designed to be functional rather than pretty (a common coder occurence!).

The problem with firefox is that a lot of home users have never heard of Mozilla or Firefox and are (rightfully) dubious about installing new programs with weird names…. But “Google – The browser” might just be the killer product to replace IE!

I’ll report back on how my browsing goes on with this pretty cool new browser.

Update: Google Chrome is REALLY fast… Just what users will need with the overloaded multimedia-laden web of 2008! This is an amazing first release. Just not sure about the vista-ish buttons on the interface.