Open Letter to The Makers of Google Chrome OS

Dear Google,

Thank you for your latest announcement to modernize and webize the P.C. operating system through the introduction of Google OS Chrome. As a web developer and software engineer I welcome the news with open arms. I am happy to see another company compete with Microsoft.

Microsoft Internet Explorer (I.E.) has caused me grief for over 10 years now. From when I built my first web page back in 1998, optimized for Netscape, and my friend called to tell me it was broken in I.E., to my latest projects, Internet Explorer has been both the source of both hours of frustration as well as a steady paycheck for many years now.

When Mac released OSX, I happily switched from Windows to Mac. But I was one of the few and I continued to need a P.C. running Windows so I could test my work in Internet Explorer. As Linux grew from the relative obscurity of the ubergeek to common enough that even my doorman uses it, I happily installed it on my P.C. as a dual boot with Windows so that I could continue to test my web applications in Internet Explorer.

As Firefox was released, I happily used it. But I still needed to test my work in Internet Explorer. As Safari and Google Chrome was released for P.C. I gladly used both of them. But, I always keep my trusty copy of Internet Explorer so I can test my web apps for the large number of users who either refuse to switch away from Internet Explorer or are unable to download and install anything on their computers.

So Google, I ask you, heck I’ll even beg or plead, please write something that doesn’t just emulate Internet Explorer, it is Internet Explorer for Google Chrome OS so that I can actually ditch my ‘trusty old copy’ of Window and Internet Explorer.

I know this is not a trivial ask. I know it doesn’t serve Microsoft’s interest at all to allow Internet Explorer to run on another operating system, but unless I can continue test my work in Internet Explorer, Google Chrome OS will be just another competitor in a crowded space to me.

I realize that allowing Internet Explorer to run on another operating systems might give it more of a boost than it deserves, but please understand the perspective of a web developer - I must test all web applications in Internet Explorer - regardless of how I personally feel about that browser, people use it and will continue to use it for many, many years.

I wish you the best of luck Google in your endeavor to compete with Microsoft. I will gladly try the Chrome OS, just as I have tried Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL, Mac OSX and many more Operating Systems. But Google, please be know this, if you really want me to ditch my ‘trusty old copy’ of Windows in favor of Google Chrome OS, you will have to build something so that I can test my web apps in Internet Explorer.

Thanks
-gregory tomlinson
Web Developer

Published
by
gregory
on July 8, 2009
in General and google
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Launch: Digi Whack | digiwhack.me

Woo-hoo! Digiwhack.me launches - YEY!

To say I am excited, would be a huge understatement. After almost two months of work, my latest project digiwhack.me is now live and ready for public consumption!

So what is Digi Whack? I’ll answer that shortly. Let me give a little back story first.

At the end of March I was on way to Texas to see my nephew. That morning, suffering from a serious hangover, I had one of those cartoon light bulb moments. People should be able to say random things on the internet without having to sign-in. The lynch pin to the idea, it had to be done right. Not right in that, make it scalable, use open source software kind of way (that was a given), ‘right’ in that graphic design, open and inclusive way, more on that in a bit.

I worked on the project on the plane ride down and after my nephew went to bed, he’s almost 3 so that is pretty early. In a just few days I had a rough prototype working. I contacted my friend and former colleague Roberto Gonzalez Rey for help with the visual aspects. He was excited by the idea and quickly hammered out the first round of designs. Since we both have day jobs, digiwhack.me got put on the back burner a few times over the last 60 days. But it’s ready for public consumption now!

What is digiwhack.me? It’s permanent graffiti in a digital world. It’s a virtual bathroom wall, a digital Jumbo tron. It’s anonymous and explicitly identifiable. Digiwhack.me is a contradiction to the personal web that has blossomed with Facebook. In short, digiwhack.me is what its user base defines it to be. The messages dictate the feeling, even the theme. Message writers can assign a theme that fits their message.

How can you interact with digiwhack.me? Great question. It’s on Twitter, identi.ca and Friendfeed. It also has an RSS feed. Users can send messages from the create message page in order to remain truly anonymous. Or send @replies to @digiwhack via Twitter.

The project is exciting by itself, but I am spicing it up even more by encouraging users to contribute their own designs and themes. At the moment, this is a manual process, but we are looking at automating the process in the future depending on interest. I will be posting instructions and guidelines shortly. If you want to get a head start, just take a look at this background.

Check out a few of my early favorite digiwhacks, this one, this one and this one are great!

And don’t forget to make your own whack message!

Published
by
gregory
on May 22, 2009
in General, JavaScript and Projects
. Comments

Backup WHM / cPanel MySQL to Amazon s3

Found an awesome post by Tim Linden on backing up MySQL to Amazon s3. It took me awhile to find what I needed, but once I found Tim’s post it took me 10 minutes to get it running. The only gotcha was it should be:

# /usr/sbin/backup-manager --verbose

Thanks Tim!

Published
by
gregory
on May 16, 2009
in Servers & Hosting
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Launch: The Love Network

This has been a very exciting week! Not only did Streampad Wordpress plugin launch, but also the new Love Network is live - and I turned 29! The Love Network has been a semi-stealth project for AOL. Essentially, it provides web-wide news aggregation using a fantastic service AOL acquired called Relegence. We got awesome support from management and the business to explore any technology or service that works best for the consumer experience.

So far, we are using YouTube for videos, which offers a really sweet in-page, ‘light box’ style experience and their API and search algorithm is phenomenal. We’re also using Google Image search to bring back relevant images. Finally, we are using Get Satisfaction for user generated feedback. While none of these services are new in the web 2.0 world, having carte blanche to make a decision between internal APIs and external services based on their quality is a huge step forward for us.

Keep an eye on the Love Network, we are going to be implementing some really cool features over the next month.

Update: The Love Network was just featured on Tech Crunch here, proud to say I even got a nod or two in the comments.

Published
by
gregory
on April 2, 2009
in General and Projects
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Public Release of Streampad Audio Player Wordpress Plugin

Happy to finally release the Streampad Wordpress plugin. The plugin has been in semi-private beta for a few months now. It’s very exciting to open it up to the general public. More details and announcements to follow shortly. Until then, you can get the zip file for Streampad 1.0 here.

Published
by
gregory
on March 31, 2009
in General, JavaScript and Projects
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Engineering and Architecture ‘Musts’ for 2009

My friend Dan shared a great article about the 10 Must-Know topics for Software Architects in 2009. It’s an amazing read for anyone in the business of writing web applications.

I’m adding learning couchDB to my list of need to know systems for the next 6 months. Interesting enough, I read about couchDB after following an incoming link to this blog from a project named keyboadr.com. The guys who wrote keyboardr.com appear to be using mod_concat and mod_jsmin, two Apache modules I added a few months back that were written by my friend Ian Holsman.

Published
by
gregory
on March 29, 2009
in General and Projects
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Google Chrome for Mac

Interested in Google Chrome for Mac? Isn’t everyone? You can get on the release list for it here.

Published
by
gregory
on March 29, 2009
in General
. Comments

The Ting Tings - Great DJ

Loving The Ting Tings - Great DJ. They are playing in March at Terminal 5, should be an awesome show.

Published
by
gregory
on February 24, 2009
in General
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Contact - The Irving Sessions

Check out this Contact - The Irving Sessions by David Alan Wright. You can listen to more of his music over at his blog.

Published
by
gregory
on February 23, 2009
in General
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Running php4 & php5 on Mac OSX 10.5

Need to run both php4 and php5 on your Mac? I did - so I used Mamp. It’s awesome! There is even a great little tutorial on installing Wordpress on Mamp here. There is a very simple toggle for running php4 or running php5 built into Mamp. I am also using the native php5 build that ships with Mac OSX 10.5.

Published
by
gregory
on February 23, 2009
in Projects and Servers & Hosting
. Comments