Harry Houdini - Love these retrospective birthdays on Google. Like when they put Will Eisner’s birthday on there a few weeks ago.

If you’ve not been to the Google Chrome Webstore, go have a wonder around there and come back. Interesting no? It’s basically a big place to find interesting things on the web that let you do stuff. Some stuff is optimised for the Google Chrome browser, others not so much.

One of the things I’ve found is that whenever you go to a new service there does seem to be the choice of signing in using your google account, which is INCREDIBLY useful and generally a major hurdle already passed to get to use something.

The first thing I’ve installed is the Graphic.ly application. What can I say, I’m a comic geek, so this seemed like the natural thing to do. I still don’t like reading comics on my computer (I’ve ever really done that for one thing, and that’s because it stopped being published in English, and so I was forced to find another method to finish off the story). The interesting thing here isn’t Graphic.ly itself, it’s the fact that I’m trying it in the first place.

The service has been online for like a year or something and this is the first time I’m actually using it. Why? Because it’s there and it was easy. In fact I’m already reading a comic with art by the great Rick Mays, whom I’ve not read anything of any substance since Kabuki Scarab (one of the best mini series you’ve probably never read).

It just kind of proves a point of what the store is meant to be about, slowly but surely letting you discover stuff that was already there, now it’s just a hell of a lot easier to access.

Google Chrome Ad - Fun ad, but I still believe it going to mainly appeal to the enterprise user and not people like me…even if I am a Google fan.

Busy couple of days for Google. I didn’t see any of it coming and it’s Google’s fault.

Well, that’s not completely true, as I was kinda expecting the Nexus S and Gingerbread around about now, but all the rest of the stuff doesn’t feel as well structured. I’ll explain what I mean by drawing that analogy that everyone and their dog has been drawing for like a few years now.

With Apple we now have a pattern as to when they typically present their latest products. It’s a pattern that has developed over the last few years, there have been some alterations, but typically Apple has been pretty consistent.

1. Early summer is all about the iPhone

2. September is all about the iPod (not sure why an iPod is considered a back to school item)

3. October/November is all about the Mac.

4. January/February used to be about OSX, but I guess now it's all about iOS and the iPad maybe?

In any case there is a pattern that any Mac boy can tell you pretty quickly. With Google, it just all seems less formal. Don’t get me wrong, I love Google. Until the very day that I decided to get my iPhone I was contemplating getting an HTC Desire (one of the reasons could easily be for something like this

• I sooooo want cached Google maps.).

It’s a different philosophy at play here. Apple feels organised in every step they make. Google on the other hand feels like the important thing is to get the basics out there (even if no product is shipped). Just the information in an unusable format and then build anticipation and excitement and sometimes animosity, until you finally ship the product, even in a slightly unpolished way.

It happed with Android and it’s happened with Chrome OS.

I’m not saying which is better, because I generally like both companies and what they do, it’s just interesting to see how their philosophies while may have started pretty close to each other have no definitely moved apart as they battle for supremacy in the mobile market.

For those wondering, watch www.youtube.com/googlechrome later on today for when Google releases information about their browser operating system and the machine’s they’ll run on…. 1 year after they officially announced this. How much changes in a year eh?

Nexus S - The new Android phone from Google. Not that it matter to me as I’m set with my iPhone for the next 3 years I would imagine. The thing is it’s always interesting to see what Google is up to because they’re the only real competition to the iPhone, and if they get better then you know Apple will need to up their game. Currently I think it’s all about the software, and iOS does a ton of stuff well, but needs a ton of stuff to make it better.

What do I think of the industrial design of the S? I personally don’t like it. I loved the Nexus One (and the Desire). HTC have something that Samsung really don’t. Samsung always have this really plasticy feel to their stuff, from their TVs to this high end smart phone. Plasticy.

Google eBooks - The other Google news. Can’t get excited about this, because it’s only available in the US, which is why I can’t get excited about something like Google Voice either. It’s annoying, because I WANT to get excited about this stuff, but I can’t…that and I don’t own an ebook reader (and no an iphone is not a book reader, you’re starting to remind me of those twats on Mac|Life who snuggle up to watch a movie on their fucking iPhones), it’s just silly. I can’t read it on my computer because I’m not used to that action. I am considering a Kindle because of the low price point and the form factor, but still waiting for the next generation of iPad, maybe a third generation or something would be good.

I thought this was interesting. Just surfing away happily, writing support request emails on the habari mailing list (trying to sort things out - Colin has been great in helping things get sorted out on the site), but I noticed this little icon in the already minimal Chrome toolbar. After I clicked on it I realised it was telling me about an update and that I needed to restart the browser. How excellent is that. The Chrome team really are paying a lot of attention to the detail for their browser which is excellent.

Search Google - Truly amazing work from Philipp Antoni. I’ll definitely be using this in the future. It’s basically what google would have wanted to do, but didn’t know how.

Google TV - I guess it was only a matter of time really. Now that I’ve moved to Lebanon, i’ll probably not be able to use something like this for many many years (proper internet connection was one of the things I gave up here).

Google - In case you missed it, play Pac Man for the next 48 hours on the google home page. The controls are a bit sluggish, but still it’s pretty damn impressive what can be done nowadays on the web. Just press ‘Insert Coin’. Funny how my last three posts have been Google news. Must be a bit of a Google week.

Google Chrome Speed Tests - The great Google Chrome adverts continue to roll out. This is one of those things that really shows the difference in the way a company like Google can stand behind it’s product in a big way.

Chrome Pointer Ad - One of the cutest adverts to hit the web in a while. I think it’s down to the music and the sound effects which really bring it to life.

Google Buzz in Gmail - Nice little addition to Gmail.

The Google Story - Great little animation detailing the past 11 years of Google. I still remember the first time I went to Google and who recommended it to me at the time, it was Richard (Burrows) sometime in 1998.

Google Chrome OS - It’s official. Coming in the winter of 2010 to brighten our days. That’s over a year away really, but still exciting news for operating system enthusiasts.

Google Service Logos - Nice list of the befores and the afters. What’s interesting to me is the sheer number of services that Google actually provides. I’ve probably only heard of like a hand full of these and only ever used 5 of them (but I use them on a daily basis).

Native Google Chrome for Mac OS X - Still version 0.1, but you can definitely see that it’s still the fastest browser on the market; that and the Omnibar works so much better than anything Apple of Mozilla have created.

Chrome Experiments - Crazy stuff that google’s V8 engine allows you to do in Chrome. Not sure how useful, but you know experimentation breeds creativity, which breeds innovation.

First Screenshot of Chrome for the Mac - Easily my favourite app on Windows (after Excel). Although I’ve been using Webkit proper for a week now (much faster), the speed and the general feel of Chrome is exactly what I want in a browser (along with plugins like Firefox). It’s just a matter of time before Chrome becomes a real player.

Google Chrome is out of Beta - Gmail takes 5 years to come out of Beta and Chrome takes 100 days? Am I the only one that thinks that’s weird? Surely Chrome would come out of beta once it’s available on the other platforms and has progressed to a solid 1.0 release. Either way, I’m still waiting for this on my mac dammit.

Google Zeitgeist - Following the searching trends of the world.

New Google Reader theme - and just when I was getting used to Helvetireader and really enjoying it’s minimalist nature, google go and change the goalpost. At least the favicon plugin for Safari still works.

Google Friend Connect - Interesting way to enhance blogs and websites to bring more people to interact with each other. Might give it a whirl at some point.

Google’s Android mobile software platform goes open source - what I hadn’t realised is that it’s actually based on the linux kernel, amongst other things.

So Google is going to be releasing a browser later on today, called Google Chrome. You can also have a look at the comic book that Scott Mcloud did for them, that introduces the browser. And finally you can have a quick look at the first screenshot of the browser. The proof I guess will be in the pudding. Will it load quickly, will it look good on a mac, will it be extensible, will developers actually support it, will it be worth the effort of moving over? Will it, won’t it, guess we’ll find out part of that question in a couple of hours when it’s officially released.

I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I was even remotely excited about a new application. Chrome definitely fit that bill. For some reason or another I really wanted to test this little application out. I wanted to see if Google had done anything worthy of their name.

I use Google for searching, I use Google as my RSS reader, to store my story online within Google Docs, and obviously I use Gmail and have done for many years now. These things I use on a nearly daily basis (except for Docs). So playing around with a browser from them obviously was somthing I had to try out. If you look around the blogosphere and the net, everyone’s got a friggin opinion about it. Some have decided to take extreme views on the subject, while others are all playing the waiting game to see what the deal actually was with the browser once they had it in their hands. Others still are pretty optimistic about the whole affair.

I’m not new to this new browser game. When Flock was announced a few years ago I was pretty excited about that…until they dropped the ball, added more cruft and shite to the actual browser and well to be honest made it ugly rather than this extremely slick entity that it could have been. With the exception of Safari usage every once in a while, Firefox has been my default browser for years. I used it originally because it was soo ahead of the game when compared to the available products on the market at the time, probably IE6.

So does Chrome give me that same leap? No, of course it doesn’t. It couldn’t because the idea behind Firefox revolutionised the net in many ways. The truth about Chrome is that it does what it says on the tin and it does it well.

1. The tabs - I thought these would be the biggest annoyance, having them at the top. Truth be told, after 5 minutes, I love them there. They sit perfectly and work great, because there is nothing above them. Effectively the browser uses all the screen real estate wisely. That is something that I really have to applaud Google on. They seem to have achieved this by actually making the rest of the browser minimal as well.

2. OS integration - Yeah, ok it's not OS integrated properly, but seriously for once I don't care. The additional stuff associated with the browser as soo small and unobtrusive that you don't really care that it doesn't have the Vista shite (I'm on holiday in Athens, thus using whatever is available, and this case it's shitty Vista). I can imagine that when the Mac version comes out, it'll be very nicely integrated with Leopard. Hell the icons are practically from Leaopard, but decidedly different at the same time so that it keeps it's own identity, that is if they keep these icons and give me the proper grey.

3. Front Page Tab - Love this. I didn't realise that this was a good idea, until it came as a default. In the same way for FF3 I didn't know what a great idea the star and you've bookmarked a site is (in the navigation bar) in the same way I didn't realise that this actually saves me a lot of time, by displaying the latest sites I've visited and the latest sites I've bookmarked.

4. Speed - Yes it's fast. Scrap that, it's FUCKING fast. I mean, seriously that's the fastest browser I've ever opened. Hell IE7 on Vista isn't this fast. There's got to be something going on here. Is everyone else seeing the same lightning speed at opening up that I've noticed?

5. Task Manager - Now that's a good idea. Much in the same vein as OSX, which allows you to kill any application that is giving you grief, so too does Chrome allow you to shut off any tab from the task manager. The task manager also allows you to have a look and see what amount of memory is being consumed by which application. Case in point Facebook is a power hungry bitch.

Looking forward, what do I want? Of course not everything is rosy and I want some things to be sorted out in future revisions of the software.

1. I want this on OSX. So it's really a matter of time I guess. Make sure it's got the same speed as the Windows version and make sure it's got the proper OS colours as opposed to this light blue. It's ok for Windows, it's not OK for OSX.

2. I want this to be open to plugins and extensions. This is the power of Firefox, that no other browser has ever had the chance of coming close to. You can find nice things you like about other browsers, but ultimately Firefox has got it all and then some. So unlike Safari which is a real pain in the ass to develop stuff for, and even then it's not a proper system, Google really should learn from that and have people develop extensions because that is what will make people take the leap.

3. Sort out that loading bar which is at the bottom of the page. Rubbish idea. Safari does it correctly by loading in the navigation bar. Use that idea instead, it's much more intuative; in the same way the tabs at the top of the page is a great idea.

Edit 1 - Seems they are serious about bringing in more developers to help out and extend Chrome, there is also the Chromium project which has been set up for this purpose. It's going to be pretty interesting to see where this browser will be in a year's time, damn interesting.