Quirky Browser

The Search

I have been using Ubuntu Linux for the last one year, and any Linux user will know that there isn’t Internet Explorer (IE) in the Linux environment. Though IE clearly demolished the Netscape browser to be the most popular browser, I never liked IE especially with the click sound on every mouse clicks . It always gave me a feeling as if I was handling a brittle object. So I was searching for an alternative, I tried several browsers like Netscape (post version 4.x) and Mozilla but none ever impressed me.

In 2004, the Mozilla foundation was working on a fork of their Mozilla browser called Firefox (Fx). Their goal was to produce a standalone-browser which was intended to replace the Mozilla Suite. When released in November 2004, the browser was an instant success with features like Tabbed Browsing, Integrated Google Search that IE could only dream to have (then). Firefox is my primary browser ever since version 1.5 and I have never looked back.

The Test

For every modern browser today, it has become mandatory for it to follow the web-standards. Right now, you have the Acid 2 and Acid 3 tests to test the browsers if it follows the web-standards.

You can test your browser right here [link]

Safari version 3 was the first browser to pass the Acid 2 test, followed by Opera. The current development of Firefox 3 and IE 8 also passes the test. Internet Explorer never had followed the web-standards until version 8, wherein the real problem lies.

The Scratch on the Head

Firefox is clearly the #2 browser in the market headed by IE. Firefox fans always bite their tongue when they come across a site that says ‘Best viewed in Internet Explorer 5.5 and above’. I too, have such woes as many of the Indian websites aren’t standards compliant. Instead they follow another rendering mode called the “Quirks Mode”. The very idea of Quirks mode is to support older browsers and you find most of the banks, trading websites as well as Google Search in Quirks Mode. Many of these websites are poorly designed with CSS and JS errors making them unusable in non-IE browsers.

What I don’t understand are there people who use an Old Browser or why do people still use an Old Browser? Even if there are people who use an obselete OS like Windows 98, and if they can’t afford to upgrade their PC there is always an option to use Linux. Linux can run even in a 15 year old computer and currently is very user-friendly and modern with the latest FOSS.

As I currently only use Linux, I find it difficult when my Trading Website HDFCSec doesn’t work in Fx. Similarly there are other websites that really irritates me. There are options like the User-Agent Switcher and IEs4Linux but it is never good enough as the real thing. As of now, I’m virtualizing Windows XP in Ubuntu with XP occupying 1.4 GiB of my hard-disk. I know its not worth it for a browser,  I’ve no other option.

I pledge all the web developers to hear all the cries of non-IE users and please make the change! I hope with IE 8, that change will come.

Silent feature in GNOME 2.22

Timelapsed backgrounds is an amazing feature in GNOME, which many people won’t be aware of. This idea written by Soeren Sandman uses a simple XML file to gradually fade between background images over time.

You can try it out by downloading this file [link] courtesy of a Ubuntu user.

A new form of Sound

This is my first post. I remember when I was a little boy, my grand-dad had these huge Black discs and he used to often played it on his gramophone. My dad too being a music buff had a good collection (according to him) of old classics. He had many LPs ranging from ‘old’ english numbers to ‘old’ hindi hits. There were few M.S. Subhalakshmi tracks too. Today with the gramophone being a thing of the past, my grand-dad always mumbles when I listen to music on my iPod. And when I tend to ignore him, he utters with a sigh “Those were the days!”

Those were certainly the days at least for my parents and grand-parents along with their entire generation. With technology poking its nose in all fronts of our lives, this gen-y can’t live without it. The gadgets we use are getting smaller and compact with the storage big enough to fit an entire universe, it is obvious that today’s generation is wired up for good. Taking an example of a cellphone, its task has grown from just being a device for communication to a multi-functional device with the capability to play music, videos and several other multimedia.

With the gadgets more or less affordable to the masses, it is a common site seeing people hooked on to their iPods and Cellphones all the time. A device can store about thousands of songs and with songs being “freely available” on the internet, a music-lover is happier than ever.

All’s well always doesn’t end well, there is one fella who isn’t taking this matter lightly, the Music Industry. Before the CD cum Internet era, the music industry was a profitable industry (it still is) with music artists selling their music through LPs, and Cassettes distributed by the Music Labels they were contractually signed. Today, with the emergence of portable media along with the internet, the prime art of bootlegging rose to a new level.

As a measure, the Music Labels with their Digital Media downloads had to provide DRM-free music to entice the customers into buy legit Music. After that, it was the iTunes phenomenon, fortunately a success story in a making. Apple Inc. with their iTunes software proved to be a major hit as the software was freely available and all one needed was an account. iTunes is now the #1 music retailer in the US of A.

That was a short-term relief for the Music Industry, but then came along Trent Reznor. Trent Reznor is the founder and the lead singer of an American band named Nine Inch Nails. He has stepped forward to redefine the music business. In 2007, he scraped his contract with his Music Label ‘Interscope Records’ and decided to distribute his music by himself. In March 2008, he released an album Ghosts I-IV independently under a Creative Common license with the first volume freely available for download. The album was a huge success with 750,000 purchases amassing $1.6 mn. In May, he followed up with another album called The Slip, this album was freely available for download in various formats for the loyalty shown by his fans.

With the success of Trent Reznor and the Nine Inch Nails, it has influenced many other artists to follow suit. If this is the trend to follow, the Music Labels are as good as dead in years to come. Free Music in a sense is reborn.