My 5+ year old laptop with AMD Sempron 2800+ processor and 704 MB of free RAM could not handle the resources that Chrome demanded.   As reviewed here Chrome did show an unusual high usage of CPU power.

To summarize here are couple of disadvantages -

• High CPU usage
• No memory advantage, one of the problems with firefox is the memory leaks - there are suggestions on forums to fix that for firefox, but Chrome is still new
• No Addons - Firefox had a big advantage - fireftp is something I use almost daily and stumbleupon - well we all have to kill some time that we don’t have

still a Google fan, will keep a watch on it and wait till they bring Chrome out of beta

Adios Chrome!

Google launched ‘Chrome’ - the google browser - and like everything else that is Google, I had to test drive the shinny new chrome the very first day it was available.

First impressions :

Its fast, its clean - its everybit Google!

Neat Features :

• No wastage of expensive browser space with a bar on top
• Tabs are just clean and works like magic (unlike IE7).
• Dragging a tab outside opens a new window
• Each tab is a process in itself so you can kill something that hangs up without affecting other tabs (i.e. if you can figure out the bad one from the list of chrome.exe)

Things that I didn’t like so much :
• Bookmarks disappear when you open a website on a tab, to access them you have to open a new tab (an extra click)
• No adons
• CPU usage (see below)
• Different processes for each tab is a neat feature, but no id for the right tab to kill, its all “chrome.exe”.

So the big question is - DO I SWITCH FROM FIREFOX or OPERA or FLOCK or MAXTHON, or SAFARI, or even IE7?

Firefox had issues with memory usage, so lets compare that. I ran Chrome, Firefox and IE7 with 4 active websites and an empty tab - here is what we see

While the memory usage isn’t bad, its not too good either. Alarming thing is the CPU usage. I don’t know if I would sacrifice 50% of my cpu usage towards a better browsing experience - when Firefox isn’t really doing a bad job at that and besides I will miss stumbling.

Surely Chrome is my default browser at the moment, lets see how long it retains the position.

Another wonder of web2.0 - ‘Jooce’ is a flash based online desktop for people who like to stay connected through the new religion of www. It’s very similar to ’stixy’ - but the way I look at it is, stixy is what windows is for an operating system, while jooce is more like a mac os.

Not that I am arguing if one is better than other, but jooce has its advantages - it offers msn, icq, yahoo and aim chat applications along with desktop sharing abilities that also stixy provides. And it also lets you upload youtube videos, music and media files and play them online. As for disadvantages (as compared to stixy) it does not offer a calendar/todo list and while it looks and feels like a desktop, well it really is a file sharing application at the core of all the cool graphic interface.

So get ready to load up your virtual hard-drive - I wonder how secure these applications will be in the long run!

Movies is another thing from my list of addictions - I follow this ‘protocol’ - I pick the first and the last movie that I have not seen before from the public library and I watch it. I run into some of the most interesting movies that I would have never picked otherwise.

‘Zorba the Greek’ is one such movie worth sharing. Made in 1964, this movie won 3 academy awards and was nominated for 7 that year. Its a beautiful movie shot on-location in the Greek island of Crete.

Zorba is the kind of person everyone would want to be; he knows how to have fun (flirting with women), how to get over the pains (dancing to the Greek tunes), how to live life to the full (trying just about everything). Zorba starts working with an uptight British author trying to run a mine he inherited. Movie is about how Zorba teaches the author to start enjoying life even when the biggest project of his life fails.

There are incidents and cultural drama that can be offending to some but if you can see past that as something which happened in 1964, its a movie you will have fun watching.

For 2 years I was away from any sort of television.
Why? Because I am addicted to television.

I do have a tv now but no channel subscription.
Why? Because I will be addicted to TV shows.

But my addiction makes me search for other sources of webtv and no, I am not looking video sharing websites like youtube.com, heavy.com, blip.tv (actually this is not that bad) or million other websites with tons of illegally shared, low resolution, ad-poping video content.. I am looking for web2.0 apps that share videos legally with shows that you would watched on your tv!

Some time back I reviewed Joost as an option - I may have used it 4 times since then being the fact that it is a memory-hog, and while really cool, my 4 year old laptop can’t handle the vista type graphics interface it offers. So when I read about Hulu, I signed up for their beta and finally got an invite!

Review : It’s amazing!

Great video quality, no softwares to download, if you have a decent internet connection you get no issues with buffering and the selection of shows currently is well - I can see House, Scrubs, Simpsons, the Office and more…

It also lets me share the videos (you don’t need a hulu account to view it) -

Hulu earns money from ads played in between the video content, I don’t mind seeing a good quality ad, lets just say I watch Super-Bowl for the ads :)

Enjoy this episode from The Simpsons and sign up for the beta here :)

Wait till it rains one day, make a nice warm cup of masala tea, take the warmest blanket, drop down the temperature to the lowest, switch off the lights and watch the latest Vishal Bharadwaj presentation - “The Blue Umbrella” a movie on the novel by the same name and written by Ruskin Bond.

A treat for those who are tired of the fast paced life, for those are tired of the chaos, tired of the monotony, tired of the oppressive heat…. the list is ofcourse endless.

Ruskin Bond is well known for capturing the lifestyle of people living on the foothills of Himalayas into his simple yet flavor full stories. Stories which, while reading, bring back the smell of simmering tea, tinkling cow bells, simple people and the picture of a typical village with its mukhiyas, tea shops and a solitary postman. I have read almost his entire collection and luckily I had missed this particular one.

To say that the movie captures the Ruskin Bond flavor superbly is the first and the simplest compliment I can give. Every character has been aptly chosen. The movie set and cinematography are superb again. For the photographers this movie gives a million ideas. For those who love children this movie brings out the little child within you. The movie’s music just like the rain and an excellent soundtrack which take on a whole new meaning while watching the movie. The performance by Pankaj Kapoor as the greedy tea shop owner is simply par excellence.

The movie is based on a little girl called Biniya who trades her only piece of jewelery for a large and bright blue Japanese umbrella. Soon the umbrella is the talk of her village and envy of a local tea shop owner who becomes obsessed with the umbrella. The umbrella goes with her everywhere, in rain, in sunshine, in snowstorm and even used for scaring off snakes and she soon becomes the local favorite of all tourists and village people alike. The tea shop owner tries to fool Biniya into barter of the umbrella with his many tempting offers but to no avail. Alas! the umbrella is lost one day, never to be found again. The poor child is very sad and cannot forget her dear possession, she accuses the tea shop owner of stealing the umbrella and from there the movie takes an interesting twist. Will she find her umbrella again? I must insist that you watch the movie.

So just wait for the rain one day…. and you know the rest!

A PECK ON THE CHEEK….This is the name of a wonderful Mani Ratnam movie that I watched past weekend. It is a very well made movie (there are some glitches and in my opinion non-required songs). It is a story about a girl, who was abandoned by her biological mother, adopted by a lovely couple and sets out with her foster parent to find her biological mother (who is involved in guerrilla warfare in Sri Lanka). I found this movie great because in a manner it propagates the idea of adoption; an idea that I hold very close to my heart. Adoption should not be viewed as the last hope for couple who, for whatever reason, could not have their own baby. Even animals in general take good care of their young ones; in fact there have been some rare incidents (not those mentioned in fables) where an animal from one species took care of the young one of other species. At least we as human beings, the supreme species, can have a better attitude towards our own species.

http://www.filmmovement.com/filmcatalog/index.asp?MerchandiseID=56

Apart from this movie per say, I found out about filmmovement.com. If you are a movie buff like myself and enjoy independent and no-commercial theme based movies, this is a really interesting site.

Confession - I am addicted to television - I am going through rehab!

While I do have a TV, I have not subscribed to cable over the last 4 years (well off and on I had basic cable). While signing in for rehab they never mentioned the use of internet as a restriction. It had worked well!

Until Nihar (one on the scooter), showed me ‘Joost‘, after searching online I finally figured out how to get an invitation!

What is Joost?

It is what Web2.0 was set to define - a web platform for your online application - to watch TV - for free!

What channels can you surf?

National Geographic
MTV
Comedy central
These are the channels that got my attention, but they have a growing list of channels that you can tune in!

Who controls the remote?

One who gets to control the mouse.

How much?

Free is the keyword! No paying $40/month to Time warner! 12months and you can buy yourself a 42″ LCD from the money you save, hook it to your laptop using a VGA cable and experience the TV in high-def

Do you have invites?

Sure, leave your email address

Is Joost the only online TV network?

Well, not really but Joost is the only one I have used, there are more online - Beware! some have legal issues.

Is this the future of television? Well, who knows! It sure looks great from here :)

I don’t know if people have heard of this upcoming movie “Gandhi, my father”. It is a story of the strained relationship between Mahatma Gandhi and his eldest son Harilal, who deviated from Gandhi’s path to get the love and attention his father deprived him of. The movie was premiered past weekend in
Johannesburg, South Africa. South African President Thabo Mbeki said after watching the movie said that the film was a gift to the people of the world and that is showed that Mahatma had made great sacrifices for the greater good.

In my opinion Gandhi was a great man, and in fact the whole world accepts this fact. It is said that behind every successful man there is a woman; the support and sacrifice of people behind these great men almost always is not acknowledged. Having said this, I am glad that someone decided to tell their story and what better candidate than Gandhi’s family. I am really looking forward to this movie with high expectations.

The name suggests it all - well it actually does not, so what is ‘Picnik’?

Its a wonder of Ajax and Flash implemented together; its an online picture editing software, requires no download, no previous knowledge of any photo editing software - all it needs is a picture, internet connection and some creativity.

Move the mouse over the image to see ‘Before’ and ‘After’

Few sliders helps you get the effect above - for the picture above I used tools like

Edit
• Resize

Creative Tools
• Black & White
• Boast
• Local Contrast
• Vignetting and Border

Save & Share
• Save to Computer - uploaded it to web

It integrates well with Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, from your computer, from a search engine - you name it, it gets the picture and lets you edit and save to pretty much where ever you want to.

Disclaimer : I am not associated with ‘Picnik’, I am only a user of the software. This post merely represents my opinion.