Google Chrome, a new web browser has been released in Beta. So far in my testing, it seems pretty fast although understandably unstable at times. It’s based on Webkit, the open source rendering engine that Apple uses in it’s Safari browser with some code adapted from the open source Firefox project. I love that there is a great amount of competition and innovation in the browser space.

Remember the old days, when web pages were basic text layouts? They were book-like. The infrastructure behind most modern browsers was designed to deal with the old web 1.0. In the era of the web 2.0 buzzword, we more often think of the web as an environment rich in applications. Google says that Chrome was built with that in mind

Features of the browser

The url bar and search bar are combined similar to the Firefox 3 “Awesome Bar”. Google calls this the Omnibar. They also have a new tab page that appears to guess what you might want to look at next.

Another nice feature is that you can drag tabs out of the browser and make a new window. All of the tabs are separate processes, meaning that if a tab crashes you won’t loose everything you have open in other tabs. Closing a tab frees up memory and even surfing to a new page releases the previous pages memory use. An internal task manager allows you to see what plugins and tabs are using the most of your computers energy. There is an “incognito mode” that allows you to prevent sites including Google from viewing your information. Pretty nifty.

Design

The design interface is minimalist. Especially when you maximize the window as the tabs will touch right against the top of your screen. It’s a very nice way to see just the webpage and forget the interface you’re seeing through. As it’s based on webkit, the rendering engine is quite pretty. It takes a bit of getting used to, like most new programs, but I find the interface fairly intuitive and pleasant. It’s all about viewing what’s on the web (aka the cloud) and not the application, which is pretty much in Google’s best interests of course. One good tip is that putting a question mark (?) in the omnibar before typing ensures a search. You can get the question mark to appear from anywhere by hitting ctrl-K.

Update September 6, 2008. I’ve seen many users complain about the lack of a home page button with the other navigation buttons. This is the default, but did you know you can just change this in the Google Chrome Options dialog? Just click the wrench icon for a menu, go to Options and in the Basics tab that opens check off the “Show homepage button in the toolbar” box. Simple!

Ever see a youtube video and want to put it on your iPod or just keep it on your computer? Keepvid is a website that lets you do just that without installing anything. It converts the youtube videos into .flv or mp4 format.

If you’re a Windows user and want more options, you can download the Free YouTube to iPod and PSP Converter by DVDVideoSoft.

If you want to get to the top headlines from the Washington Post, the New York Times or CNET’s tech coverage you might turn to podcasts: free online video and audio entertainment.

The problem is that most people don’t even know what a podcast is. It has something to do with the iPod right?. In fact, it is not just for iPod users. It’s just the internet’s most versatile form of free radio or tv that can be delivered in whatever way you the user chooses. That’s the power of podcasts, they are made to be delivered to the user in whatever way he or she finds most convenient. They can even be listened to right from your browser! Did I mention that podcasts are absolutely free free free? (echo echo echo)

What is a podcast?

Wikipedia defines a podcast as “a series of digital-media files, which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.”

Just like you subscribe to the newspaper, or set a TIVO to download your favorite shows, you can get podcasts delivered to you or in the case of some services set them up for streaming. They’re just common video or audio formats like avi or mp3 but they are wrapped in a “feed”. This is like a webpage that delivers text information, but instead it contains broadcast information to get it to the program you listen from. That’s the link that often ends with .RSS (but not necessarily) or is commonly associated with this symbol: . Read more about this symbol, check out http://www.feedicons.com.

What kind of content can be found in podcasts?

Podcasts can be professional quality audio and video from brands you know such as NPR, BBC, the Guardian. The power of podcasts, however, is the targeted and niche content. Interested in comic books, science fiction, science? There are podcasts that target your specific interests made by people like you. It’s not the same mainstream content as you might find in television or radio. So you can form your own channel of content that just feeds you the things you love and know about.

So how do I listen or watch?

PodcatcherMatrix provides an interface to help you compare various ways of receiving podcasts.

PodNova is a website made just for situations like this. The web-based PodNova player lets you subscribe to podcasts and has a very nice online application for doing this. It has an iTunes feel, but much simpler and no installations necessary.

Google Reader is one way to do it. Just plug the podcast url into the add subscription box and the reader should discover the RSS feed for you. The advantage of Reader, in my opinion, is the way it displays the notes from the podcast and the player all on one convenient window. It makes it really easy to follow along with shows that have web links. The Google custom homepage also accepts podcast feeds.

My Yahoo can also support podcast feeds and play them in your browser. Other online “podcatchers” include Newsgator, Netvibes, Pageflakes, Odeo

Juice is an open source free download to help organize your listening if you’d prefer a dedicated program for podcasts instead of your browser. Doppler is another such program. Even if you don’t have an iPod, you can still use Apple iTunes for free.

Looking for podcasts to listen to? Just do a Google search for any topic you might want to know about plus the word podcast and chances are you can get the content you’re looking for. Check out the links page. Better yet, listen to my podcast: The SketcheeBook Podcast featuring quick tips for illustrators, designers and other visual arts. If you have a favorite podcast feel free to post it in the comments.

About four years ago, I shared a tip on using Gmail with Google Deskbar’s minibrowser (DeskBAR not DeskTOP). Basically, you could get a small browser window right in your taskbar that would go away when you’re done with it. The power of it came from the ability to set up keyboard shortcuts to quickly make it where you want to go on the web: Gmail, Search or whatever you could imagine Unfortunately, Google abandoned Google Deskbar soon after.

You can still download Deskbar at PC World if you want, but it’s no longer supported by Google. Luckily, it turns out that some Deskbar fans have developed their own version of the software: Googol Deskbar! Let me know if you give it a run and if it’s something you find useful. Or not as much.

Using Audacity this past week has inspired me to talk about the ugly open source programs floating around. Many great open source programs don’t care about design. Searching about Audacity, many developers defend the look of the program as being usable. Usability doesn’t make something well designed, although that is definitely part of the designers considerations.

Screenshots of Audacity. photo credit: webg33k

Scribus, which I had talked about before, is an open source design tool for designers. But it’s not yet looking too good. The interface isn’t as outdated as Audacity, but still feels like something out of the Windows 95 era. It feels much more complicated and less polished than InDesign. Open Office has the throw back look down to a science. It looks very much like an early version of Office despite having many advanced features. (Microsoft has since made the Ribbon interface part of office making it easier to find underutilized features)

Firefox and Thunderbird have a great look because they’re easily skinned. That encourages the design community’s help.

Although I think that too many open source programs have pretty poor UI design (from a mass market perspective), the open media center Elisa has a fairly commercial looking pretty design too. It’s pretty much inspired by Apple, but taken in their own direction.

Design is a huge part of innovation. That seems to be a place where commercial products can beat open source. Despite the criticism, a lot of this is great software in a bad package.

photo credit: 7son75

What is a microblog? At the time of posting this, I have an experimental microblog on my site powered by Twitter (I have the username Sketchee). Microblogs are just short posts and updates limited to a very very small number of characters. You can text a quick thought right to your phone about whatever you like. I’ve been hearing about it everywhere. Everyone makes it seem so revolutionary, but it’s such a simple concept. It’ll take time before I get used to the idea and find out how useful it really is.

Why is this supposed to be interesting? When blogs first emerged, they tended to have diary and journal type of entries. While many of those blogs still exist, blogging as a medium has moved into topical and reader-centric type writing. Many of the twittery microblogs are being used to quickly get out the latest news and really useful information.

So join up, follow your friends, and when posting try to think about your audience. Some folks I thought to follow right away were Will Pate, Amber Mac, and Leo Laporte. And of course you might want to follow me too. I’m just starting out too, so drop me a note here or there if you’re using it and how your experience has been!

For more information if you really want to start making the most of it, take a look at The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter.

James Houston brings us Big Ideas. It’s the Radiohead song, played on old computer equipment. It’s great to see people think way outside of the box. The idea of this remix is to illustrate how something can be more than what they were designed for. That’s an inspiring sentiment and makes for a nice art piece.

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Want more Radiohead? Read about my trip to their Nissan Pavilion Concert

The average cable station has less than one minute of science and technology coverage in five hours of coverage according to this report. I listen to probably 50% or more science and tech coverage in the form of audio and video podcasts. It’s probably true that the people with the most interest in tech will be able to seek out this information on their own, but general news sources really need inform people of at least some of the goings on of the industry. With so much repetition on 24 hour news stations, you would think they would be scrambling for content

Check out the latest episode of the SketcheeBook Podcast, Starline Hodge (Candi Comics) has some fun stories. Really entertaining listen! Thanks Star, if you ever want to come on the show again let me know!

I’m hoping to have another guest soon, there’s one person who has said he’ll do one so hopefully he’ll get on that soon. He’s probably reading this.

I quietly launched the SketcheeBook Podcast . I have the initial bugs ironed out at this point so I’m ready for your feedback. Currently I’m having two episodes up each week. The site’s setup allows me to upload a cache that updates automatically. I’ve been recording episodes in advance and at least have episodes done for a few weeks. The first few episodes are the basics of the creative process and there will be more things covered as we go.

If you’re an graphic artist, illustrator, designer or other creative hopefully you’ll either be able to get something from it, contribute or both. Send me your creativity tips and I’ll mention your name and link in the show. Or better yet, record it yourself and I can have your voice and plug in the show. E-mail sketcheebook-at-sketchee.com or add that e-mail address to Google Talk to send a voicemail. Let me know what you want to hear, what you don’t and all of that.