Overnight
I can't get enough of time-lapse video. Love this one from a guy named Charles Leung who took this of the sky over somewhere in Hawaii.
I can't get enough of time-lapse video. Love this one from a guy named Charles Leung who took this of the sky over somewhere in Hawaii.
(download)
There are a number of exhibits included in the budget that President Obama sent to Congress this week.
An analytics company called Net Applications has determined that Google’s Chrome web browser is stealing market share from both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.
In January, Chrome grew by 0.57% to 5.20% of the browser market. Meanwhile, Firefox shrunk by 0.20% to 24.41% and IE shrunk 0.51% to 62.18%. Safari and Opera both stayed put, more or less; grew 0.05% to 4.51% and shrunk 0.02% to 2.38%.
You might recall that Chrome passed Safari to grab third place in the browser market a month ago; it seems probable that the ground Chrome is gaining is at Microsoft and Mozilla’s expense, although no direct causation has been definitively established by Net Applications’ numbers.
Chrome has a number of advantages, not the least of which is the fact that it’s much faster than the competition. It’s been derided for its lack of certain valued features in the past, but has gradually been introducing them. For example, it just put extensions and bookmark sync into its live Windows build a week ago. Google has been running ad campaigns on sites like, and it seems like it’s been working.
Now the Bad News: Internet Explorer 6
5.20% of the market is actually impressive for a browser as new as Chrome, but Internet Explorer still dominates. IE8 takes up 22.31% of the market and IE7 carries 14.58%, but it’s upsetting to see that IE6 on its own is still the second most popular browser version (behind IE8) at 20.07%.
At Mashable, we’ve made it clear that we believe IE6 must die. It has stifled innovation and left its users vulnerable to security threats for too long, and compared to modern browsers it’s a hassle to use.
Google agrees, and so do many other companies; that’s why it’s phasing out support for the browser, hoping that in doing so it can convince users to either upgrade to a newer version or switch to a competing browser like Firefox, Chrome or Safari.
The good news is that this seems to be working, albeit very, very slowly. IE6 has been declining gradually for months. It just can’t happen quickly enough.
Now that they've begun supporting extensions, I'm becoming an even bigger Google Chrome fan. Blazing fast..
It's tax time of year again, and it's a good time to remember to check that your paycheck withholding is correct.
Lately I've been trying Dropbox, which is a web-based file backup tool that synchronizes across multiple computers. So far I'm really impressed. I used to find that I did all my work on one computer (my desktop), because that's where most of the data was saved.
By Andy Woodruff on 22 December 2009
Apparently in Maine they have a saying, “you can’t get there from here” (spoken in a Maine accent), said when giving directions as an observation of the impossibility of traveling a direct route between certain places. It seems to have something to do with lakes and the organization of roads in the vast rural areas of the state. To some extent it also holds true in other parts of New England.
I have been learning my way around the Boston area for some fifteen months now, and I do not wish to suggest that the challenge in an urban area measures up to what the good people of rural Maine face, but I think of the phrase often as I’m puzzled by how to drive between two points in town. Compared to most American cities, the street network here can be rather chaotic, and absurdly simple trips like driving across a street or around the corner can require a convoluted route and an intimate knowledge of the local streets. It’s just another good reason to leave the car at home.
Anyway, while spending some time dreading getting in the car to finish a bit of Christmas shopping, I was curious to see what some of these ridiculous routes look like on a map. Here are a few of the not-so-simple paths required for simple trips in and around Boston. Bits of intersecting streets are shown to illustrate that there’s no such thing as just going around the block.
Bring GPS.
This is funny and true (both about Mainers and Boston roads)..
The trade dispute is one of the thornier parts of being a fantasy football commissioner. :)
So when I ran across this trade analyzer put together by Accuscore, I was instantly intrigued. Given how popular fantasy football has become, I've often wondered why there isn't something like this readily available. I've even spent some time thinking about how to develop one.
Unfortunately this season is about over, so this one is not very useful for me this season. But I plan on keeping an eye on this tool for next year.
