Kylee reprimanded me for not blogging enough. While this is a very valid accusation, I’ve decided to oblige her in only the most annoying sort of way. So here you go, Kylee. A blog post just for you. Enjoy.

Visa Overcharges Customers

There’s no way this can work out in a positive manner for Visa’s reputation. I mean, they overcharged individual customers to the amount of $23 quadrillion (each), according to CNN. That’s right, some Visa cardholder’s received their monthly statement and had the heart attack of the century upon seeing certain “purchases of goods” to the dollar amount of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00.

To Visa’s credit, they quickly admitted that it was a “temporary programming error ... [which] caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted.” They say some transactions. Roughly 13,000 transactions, actually. Well, at least they caught it, right? But isn’t it scary to think that a programming error could cause such a huge mishap? And more importantly, what the heck did the programmer do to cause such an error.

Well, for those of you familiar with C++, it doesn’t take too long to figure it out. The error was in the amount of 2314885530818450000 (we multiplied by 100 to get rid of the nasty change). If we convert that number to hexadecimal, it comes out to be 20 20 20 20 20 20 12 00. 20 in hexadecimal is a whitespace character, so it’s likely that a conversion was never made and the customers really made purchases for $46.08.

An Online Operating System?

That’s what Google says, anyway. Better yet, they claim they can have it ready for delivery by the end of next year! Microsoft, of course, is in shock, but this isn’t all that surprising considering their OS turn around is something under five years ... If they work really fast.

The Google Chrome OS has led to talk of booting Google’s CEO off of Apple’s board. After all, that would just be a nasty conflict of interest, what with Apple being a major OS distributor as well.

Google claims that the new OS will be written from the ground up (like they did when the “reinvented” the browser with Chrome), will be a system built atop the Linux kernel, and will boot and “get users onto the web in seconds.”

Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer, has laughed at the new OS. I don’t know if he thinks it’s a joke or if he was scoffing at the reality of it, but I seem to recall him laughing at the iPhone a year before it’s release as well and, well, making some rather audacious (and now embarassing) statements about it in this video. Based upon that evidence, and how successful the iPhone has become today, I’d say the new Google Chrome OS is going to be revolutionary, to say the least.

Demetrius and Bruno Live

Near the end of our semester at Cedarville, there was an unfortunate accident involving cold-blooded animals and hot water coming out of the faucet. Now I’m not going to point any fingers, but Dave was the one changing the water in the tank ... Needless to say, there was a seizure and the fishes died. There was much mourning and sorrow.

At the beginning of the summer, I cleaned my room. This is a regular occurrence for me, but in this particular cleaning I came across my 2.5 gallon fish tank which was empty. I thought to myself, “The tank and filter are the expensive parts ... Fishes are cheap!” I quickly drove to PetSmart and purchased two little fish: a Platy and a Molly. One was red, the other black. The black one I named Bruno, and the red one was called Demetrius (names compliments of an afternoon of boredom for Evan and me).

After these three months of summer, Demetrius and Bruno are still kickin’! I’m now getting slightly worried about the eight hour trip back to school. I’m really hoping they can survive it so we can see how much longer these guys will keep on sticking with us. If you have any good ideas for safely transporting said fishes from Iowa to Ohio, drop me a line.

So, Michael Jackson is Dead

That’s the rumor, anyway, though there are still those that believe it’s all a marketing ploy. And, you know, that’d be a pretty good idea considering sales have never been better for him, especially on iTunes. After Jackson’s death, six of the top ten songs sold on iTunes were Michael Jackson’s hits. More significantly, nine out of the top ten albums also belonged to Jackson! Nineteen out of the top twenty-five music videos had Michael Jackson in them as well.

I can’t say that I blame the world. I mean, he was a legendary artist, and I don’t think there will ever be another musician that will be able to attain the caliber of Jackson. Despite his social record, he holds the spot as one of my all-time favorite performers, and within two days after his passing, I listened through his entire discography as a tribute. Yes, I do own his entire discography ...

Please Try to Compile Your Code ... Seriously

I’ve been running into this annoyance a lot lately, especially at work. Honestly, how hard is it to just make sure the code in your tutorial actually compiles before you submit it, huh? I’ll tell you: it’s not that hard. Dropping it into UltraEdit and running GCC on it is about the most complicated way to do it, but you could obviously just paste it in an IDE and check it that way as well. I don’t care if it runs, necessarily, just make sure it compiles. You’re trying to teach people with your code, for goodness sake. What kind of an example are you setting if the code you’re “teaching” them with sucks?

Frequently I stumble upon tutorials, and as I’m reading through them I think, “Wait, that can’t work. Will that really compile? I thought ‘Class’ was lowercase in C++ ... And why isn’t there a semicolon at the end of this line? Shouldn’t they have included this library?” Out of curiosity, I grab the code and try to compile it myself and, sure enough, it craps out on me. The common misconception is that, “Well, this code is never meant to be compiled, it’s just an example.” But that’s just the point! It’s supposed to be an example ... And it’s wrong!!

Nine times out of ten this is a trivial issue, but I’ve run into instances where the broken code is what I’m trying to interpret, and it’s really hard to interpret something when you’re first trying to figure out if it’s right in the first place. How do you expect me to know if it’s right or not if you’re supposed to be teaching it to me?

Sometimes the errors are just syntactical. Those are bad enough. The worst is when you try to compile a tutorial’s example code and it causes something catastrophic, like a segfault. Please, for the sake of those you’re trying to teach, make sure what you’re teaching is accurate!

Microsot Wants to Give You Anti-Virus Support for FREE

After Microsoft OneCare failed worse than Windows Vista and the Zune combined, Microsoft took some well deserved time off from the Security Protection field of computing. They needed to rethink things. In steps code name “Morro.” What is Morro? Well, it’s pretty much Microsoft OneCare ... But for free ... And apparently better. And it’s supposedly going to be bundled with Windows 7. OneCare failed because it was accused, numerous times, of being “unable to detect a significant number of threats.” I guess Morro plans to be better?

There are already two excellent and free alternatives to the Symantec and McAfee subscription services out there made by Avast and AVG. Microsoft’s Morro soon to be the third free alternative, both Symantec and McAfee are saying that they aren’t worried about their sales being effected by these free products, even with Morro bundled with the Microsoft OS. According to the CEOs of the Big Boy companies, a free alternative just can’t guarantee the security that users need while browsing today’s malicious internet; you need more than just anti-virus support, and that’s what the Premium services give you. While I agree that you need more than just anti-virus support, there are many other prevention companies out there that offer the same services for free that the Big Boys offer at a hefty price.

Whether you’re interested in paying for Symantec’s services or you’re willing to settle for the free Morro that will soon come with your Windows operating system, it’s good for the Big Boy’s to have some healthy competition to keep their products quality and their prices low. Though I can’t say that security competition from Microsoft is any incentive for Symantec and McAfee to keep their quality high ... But we can hope.


That’s all I’ve got for now. We’ll see how long it takes me to come up with more Information You Won’t Find Useful.

Tags: Information You Won't Find Useful, Google, Microsoft, Visa, Music, Programming, Fish

After Al Gore invented the internet for us, we realized we needed a way to walk around the thousands upon thousands (and now billions upon billions) of sites that were out there. Meet the browser. To the best of my knowledge, Al Gore has never claimed part in inventing the browser, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

Just for fun, and before we start to really rip apart the benchmarks of Google Chrome, let's look at some old, failed browsers so we can scoff at them (by order of appearance).

WorldWideWeb (1991-1994) - I actually can't call this pioneer a failure. After all, it was the world's first web browser. By the way, it was only released for NeXTSTEP OS. The operating system created by NeXT Computer, a company that was founded by none other than Steve Jobs. The NeXTSTEP OS was quite literally the parent of Mac OS X, and it was also the very first object-oriented and multi-task-ready operating system. (Boy, it's amazing what that Steve Jobs can do ...) However, in 1993 the developers released the source code, thus making the program freeware and allowing for the development of it's children, ViolaWWW, MidasWWW, MacWWW, and their big brother Mosaic.

Netscape Navigator (1994-2007) - Mosaic/Netscape rose to power and popularity much faster than Internet Explorer did, and since it was owned by Netscape Communications, a succesfull company that was pivotal in getting internet readily accessible in every home, the browser had plenty of funding. However, Microsoft was simply a bigger, more powerful company, and the beneficial wars between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were eventually won by Internet Explorer. While Netscape failed miserably by allowing their poorly coded browser to get disgustingly bloated with features, their ultimate failure was in 1999 when they allowed America Online to buy then. Who cares if they offered you ten billion dollars! Immedietly following Netscape's acquisition by AOL, they lost over 30% of their market share in less than one year.

HotJava (1994-1999) - A very customizable, extensible browser that was built around Java in order to easily execute Applets. The ingenuity of HotJava is that it's a browser coded entirely in Java, thus making it extremely portable. The downside to HotJava is that it's coded entirely in Java, thus limiting it to the JRE and leaving it a fairly slow memory hog, and with the presence of Java so readily incorporated into more recent browsers and the growing popularity of Macromedia's Flash, the project was terminated.

Internet Explorer (1995-Present) - It doesn't need much introduction or explanation. But Internet Explorer has always been interested in integrating (not outsourcing to extensions) functionality at the expense of ease-of-use, security, and speed. And, let's be honest, it's Microsoft ... Therefore, a failure.

OmniWeb (1995-Present) - Wouldn't you know it, it's another NeXTSTEP OS browser! That being the case, it graduated, along with it's OS, to Mac OS X, and that is where it resides today. Unfortunately, this is a limit for it. While it was a good browser in the area of speed, and very minimalistic, it lacked key functionality and compatibility with some of the most recent web innovations, so it falls short.

Internet Explorer for Mac (1996-2005) - Wow. It was simply horrible. Probably the worst maintained browser of all time. It went through three updates in one year, went silent for three years, released it's fourth update in 2000, then was untouched until it's termination in 2005. It was incompatible, buggy, crashed more than anything, and incredibly slow!

Opera (1996-Present) - I've always felt that Opera failed when it came to honesty in advertising. They used to claim to be the “fastest browser” ever made. Well, they’ve since revoked that claim ... It claims it’s “faster” on their website now. Faster than what? I’m not sure, because until the most recent release (9.5) I’ve never been pleased with the speed of the browser. Though, even with 9.5, I still think Firefox is faster, and you can’t argue with the speed I get from Safari. Around version 7, Opera bloated the browser beyond belief, thus slowing it to a crawl. They’ve since revamped the interface and it the newest release it’s actually quite efficient. However, compatibility has always been an issue with it.

Gzilla (1997-1999) - The developer was last heard from on August 16, 1999, pleading for help on his very own site. Apparently he could get his browser to compile on anything other than Linux/x86, so he was begging for outside help. It's rumored the browser emerged a few months later as as Dillo, but that's just probably not true. I'm guessing Mozilla felt threatened by the last five letters of his browser's name, so they took him out.

MyIE/Maxthon (2000-Present) - Maxthon’s clincher is that it’s extremely customizable. It advertises itself as an adaptable alternative to Internet Explorer. The negative clincher is it’s only for Windows. On top of that, it crashes too frequently. It’s not slow, but reliability is a big factor when writing a browser, and if your browser crashes on me too often, I’m not going to use it.

Firefox (2002-Present) - The most successful browser to incorporate extensions. Since Netscape completely fell of the face of the planet somewhere around 2003, Firefox has been the most used cross-platform web browser. It boasts speed, elegance, and integrated functionality. Even better, you can add basically any functionality you desire through extensions; this is what has made Firefox so well known. Unfortunately, Firefox loses a lot of security when they allow third-party extensions. More than that, extensions are impossible for the creators of Firefox to maintain, so when the browser is updated, there’s always the risk (and it very frequently happens) of losing compatibility with extensions. Not very convenient for the extension programmers or their users.

AOL Explorer (2005-Present?) - It’s AOL ... We already know why it fails: Overpriced, slow, inefficient, and unstable. Apparently the browser is still around, but it’s now a part of the AIM package.

Flock (2005-Present) - Flock’s biggest asset is that it’s multi-platform. On top of that, much like Maxthon, it boasts customizability! It integrates beautifully with many popular websites, including Facebook, iGoogle, Flickr, Digg, Twitter, etc. On top of that, it does allow extensions. It has a main page that keeps all of your favorites and information organized and easily accessible. Unfortunately, it still is rather buggy, and speed is also a bit of an issue with it. It enjoys freezing on it’s users.

Now, read my review of Google Chrome!

Tags: Apple, Operating Systems, Browsers, Google

Healthy competition is good. But if all the companies competing aren't on an equal playing field, one company will be dwarfed and squeezed out of the race fairly rapidly. That is what the three-year-old, California-based company was afraid of in 2001 when the concept of a building their own browser first emerged; they weren't big enough yet.

Now, in 2008, Google employs nearly 20,000 people, has a net income of over four billion dollars annually, and has the most widely used, well known search enginge in the world. Heck, they have their own verb! They're finally ready to compete in a battle that matters and is grossly overlooked. The battle of the browsers.

On September 2nd, 2008, Google released it's beta browser, Google Chrome.

So, why do we need another battle of the browsers? Didn't we finally settle down and decide Firefox was simply the best browser there ever was or ever will be? Simple answer: No. Firefox leaves a lot to be desired, and we certainly can’t be expected to rely on Internet Explorer or Safari for our browsing needs. Before reading what I love about Google Chrome and why it could be the solution to all our browser woes, first read my critique of old, failed browsers.

For the last too-many-years, Internet Explorer and Firefox have been battling it out, trying to keep their users. The problem is, both browsers lack something significant. They’re entering the browser race from the wrong perspective. Internet Explorer only recently allows extensions, and they’re very limited. Firefox allows extensions to run rampant, but even worse it relies on them for all of its functionality. What we need is a browser that relies on the website itself for the functionality. And how about some old-fashioned simplicity? Apple knows where that’s at ... So does Google.

When we need a map (Google Maps), have a question relating to anything in the world (Google Search), need to check our email (Gmail), write a blog (Blogger), watch a video (YouTube/Google Videos), or check the latest headlines (Google News), Google is our ultimate destination. So, if one company understands the internet, how to search it, and how to manage it so well, why don’t we allow them to design our browser, which will peruse the internet they allow us to search. They know what we need.

Google Chrome boasts privacy. Though many are up-in-arms about the agreement you’re forced to agree to before downloading the software, you must realize it’s in beta ... Of course they’re going to analyze your browsing for testing purposes. That doesn’t mean they’re selling it to Russia. Google Chrome allows you to search and edit your browsing history. Not only that, there’s a “silent mode” which allows you to browse privately without leaving a trace on the site or the computer.

Google Chrome will soon be multi-platform. The Mac and Linux versions are in currently being developed. After all, if Google Chrome is really going to try to compete with Firefox, they simply must be cross-platform. Additionally, Google Chrome is open source currently, as it is in beta, which leaves it open to innovation from nerds all over the world. Luckily, we have our friends at Google monitoring this to make sure nobody bloats it; only the useful stuff will be added into later releases.

Google Chrome provides a simple, elegant interface that just makes sense. “Intuitive” comes to mind ... makes me think of Mac, for some reason. Searching Google, typing an address, and searching your history are all combined into the one bar at the top of the browser. Of course, there is tabbed browsing, and new tabs can display a list (images included) of your most visited websites. Drag the tab away from the menu bar and make it a new window easily.

Google Chrome is reliable. Tabbed browsing is great, but, let’s face it, something’s going to make you crash someday ... Luckily, Google Chrome looks at each individual tab as its own instance of the browser, and if once freezes, it won’t crash the entire browser.

Google Chrome is fast. Really fast. Some folks bothered running these fancy things called “benchmarks” on the browser and, who knows how, determined that Internet Explorer is still faster. Yah, they’re wrong. There’s no way that’s true. Run your benchmarks all day long, people, but no matter what algorithms your benchmarks run to determine performance speeds, they can’t argue with the fact that I can sit here and visibly see a difference. If I can visibly see a difference, your benchmarks are wrong. Do them again. Not only do pages load faster and tabs open instantaneously, the browser launches without a hiccup as well, largely in part to it’s very small footprint.

Google Chrome comes JavaScript ready, enhancing sites that use Java and allowing them to load faster. Included in this functionality is the ability to create shortcuts to web-based applications straight on your desktop. For instance, Google Docs (or Zoho Docs, if you’re not a fan of Google Docs), Gmail, your blog ... Create direct links to them straight on your desktop, and have them open quickly in their own little Google Chrome window, just like an application. In fact, this was the main concept which Google Chrome is built around.

A lot of the flack I’ve heard about Google Chrome is, in fact, it’s simple design. People seem to think that because it’s so simplistic, it can’t do anything. Apparently that’s the culture we’ve been drowned in. Look, something doesn’t always have to be flashing in your face, offering you things to click on, for it to be good. You should control the your computer and it’s programs, the computer and it’s software should not control you.

What I’m most comfortable with is simply the fact that this browser was developed by Google, a company I’ve come to rely on and trust for my web browsing. As it develops and comes out of beta, I don’t think they’ll allow it to bloat. It will continually be developed around internet-based applications and support for them.

I only have one more pressing question that will need to be answered in the coming months: What will the next Firefox browser look like?

Tags: Browsers, Internet, Google

1. "Why did The Happening suck so bad?"
2. "At around 5:20 pm in Iowa City, IA, over Coral Ridge Mall, was there a funnel cloud or any reports of a tornado?"
3. "Can males wear earrings in the '08-'09 semesters at Cedarville University?"
4. "Who is Alex Laird of Iowa?"
5. "How does ChaCha make money?"

Ever used Google's free SMS service? You can text it questions that are understood by it's simply search application database: Questions like "Showtimes, 52328" or "Weather, 45314" to receive the showtimes for movie theaters near Robins, IA or the weather around Cedarville, OH. The answering service is simple and usually replies within a few seconds. You can text Google SMS at GOOGL (46645). It's very convenient for simple questions, but far too often you ask it more complicated questions and it replies with a "I do not understand" message. Alas, there is only so much a computer can do ...

ChaCha takes Google SMS to the next level. Everything Google's smart app can't answer, ChaCha can! Simply text ChaCha (242242) or call 1-800-2CHACHA and ask it any question (including the ones above) to receive an in depth, personally researched answer! That's right. ChaCha has an army of "Guide's" (as they call them) waiting to personally investigate your question and send you a text message answer in reply. Usually there answer will be around 160 characters, but if the answer is too long they'll send you multiple texts. This is nice because it means the Guide won't ramble on, but it also gives them enough room to sufficiently answer the question. In general, the guides to a good job of being concise and even keeping the messages lighthearted and humorous.

Here are the answers to my aforementioned questions, in the same order:

1. "I haven't seen it yet, but if the director is calling it a B movie, then it probably sucks b/c he didn't put enough into it."
2. "Could have been, no info on the web yet about it, sources say Iowa City flooding could be worse than 1993!"
3. "All forms of facial jewelry, other than earrings for females, are prohibited both on and off campus. No males are not allowed."
4. "Alex Laird is a college student at Cedarville University in Iowa. He enjoys writing and computer programming as hobbies."
5. "The company charges consumers nothing, but it says it his hoping to make money by striking deals with cellphone carries to incorporate the ChaCha service into their current 411 phone-number-look-up service. Also, it hopes to eventually include ads in the text message answers it provides."

Pretty good answers. Too bad Cedarville is in Ohio, but at least they called it a University and not just a college!

Guides get paid 20 cents every time they answer question. Additionally, ChaCha has a search engine (ChaCha Classic) online similar to that of Google. Additionally, you can call the 800 number, record your brief question, and they will text you an answer back. Anyone can sign up to be a Guide; you must take a brief questionnaire/quiz to make sure you are qualified to quickly and efficiently answer people's questions. Interestingly, all of the ChaCha services are 100% free, including ChaCha Classic. ChaCha Classic doesn't even contain targeted ads like Google's search does, so there is obviously no income for ChaCha that way. Even if ChaCha does plan on incorporating ads into the texts at a later date or making a deal for 411 incorporation with cell phone providers, that doesn't explain how they pay for their services here and now, especially considering what their Guides get paid and how many Guides they have! The only way I currently see them making money is off of their store.

Not that I'm complaining. Free always has been and shall always remain the best way to go. In the future, if you have a quick and easy question you need answered (like the definition of "inundated," movie showtimes for Columbus, OH, or the Spanish word for "cat"), Google SMS is the way to go since it frequently replies within seconds. However, it's reassuring to know you can have ANY question answered ANYtime simply with a question 160 characters or less.

Tags: Internet, Google