What's it all about, Alfie?

This morning I noticed that Google Chrome dev had a significant version jump to 8.0.552.0, and while the release notes said there are stability fixes, I think the bigger reason is that the beta channel is on 7.0.517.0, or something like that, and they wanted to keep a full major release number ahead of that. I'm not buying that there are major, significant changes that just didn't make it into the release notes.

But that's OK, I just think it would have been a little more honest to be up-front about the renumbering.

This morning I noticed that Google Chrome dev 7.0.544.0 was out, with several fixes including some Mac changes in the accelerated drawing code. Well, isn't that nice? Written proof that there might actually be accelerated drawing in the browser - that would be very interesting. But it really doesn't matter - it's a good browser, and it's nice to see progress.

While it's not my favorite graphics manipulation application on the Mac, GraphicConverter has shown itself to have some invaluable tools. Specifically, when we moved this past summer, I had a lot of documents that needed to be processed to and from the different parties. GraphicConverter did all this far simpler than anything else I had. It was simply amazing.

So when I got an email the other day about a totally revamped version - a year in the making, I thought What the heck, it's been good for me, stick with it and got it. It was a $26 upgrade, and it seems reasonable for that price. Like I said, it was a lifesaver several nights when I was dead tired and messing with these documents was not the first thing on my mind.

It's got a cleaner UI, and it seems to have everything I used. Support the folks making great Mac software. Nice.

This morning I checked and iTerm2 Alpha 10 was out, and the release notes for this update are impressive:

The focus of this release is bug fixes. It also features a major performance improvement as well as better internationalization support. This is the first 64-bit release.

• Rewrote drawing code for up to 10x speedup.
• iTerm2 is now a 64-bit binary!
• Improve text rendering by making baselines always line up when mixing fonts and in IME.
• Input method editor improved.
• Bold selections have proper foreground color (bug 106).
• Fix bug where cursor remains I-bar in title (bug 88).
• Resynchornize properly after invalid utf-8 sequence (bug 73).
• Fix bug where opening a tab changes window size.
• Fix race condition when toggling full screen and a draw occurs.
• Fix drawing bugs.
• Fix some minor memory leaks.
• Fix bug where tab bar would not draw correctly after window resize (bug 167).
• Fix bug where one-word commands in a bookmark didn't work (bug 166).

I'm most pleased with the move to 64-bit and the speed-up of the rendering code. Fantastic work!

This morning I noticed that Google Chrome dev 7.0.536.2 was out, and the release notes look a little better than the last few updates:

The Dev channel has been updated to 7.0.536.2 for Windows, Mac, Linux and Chrome Frame

All

• Fixed saving passwords containing non-ASCII characters (Issue 54065).
• Accelerated compositing and support for 3D CSS transforms enabled by default (Issue 54469)
• WebGL support enabled by default (Issue 54469)
• Regression fix: keep the download shelf visible when multiple sites are saved. (Issue 54149)
• Add a lab for the Page Info Bubble for Windows and Linux; Mac coming shortly.

Mac

• More keyboard shortcuts for Tab Overview.(Issue 52834)
• Add sqlite and javascript memory columns to task manager

So it looks like they are back on getting new features into the code - as opposed to security fixes, etc. Nice to see. In a related note, I also saw that they took the 'beta' channel to 7.0.517.24 which is the first time 'beta' has seen a 7.x release. Nice confidence in the code, guys. Keep it up.

I noticed this morning that Google Chrome dev is now at 7.0.517.24 and while to sum total of the release notes is:

This release focused on resolving minor bug fixes or crashes. More details about additional changes are available in the svn log of all revisions.

it's something that makes sense upgrading. I'm just curious when the Mac client is going to get the hardware acceleration that they are putting into the Windows version? It'd be nice, but it's not bad now... just would love to see more widespread use of the GPU in software... it's a great untapped resource.

I got a tweet this afternoon that said VoodooPad Pro 4.3 is Out. I hit the 'update' button and started the download. I use it all the time now for holding all kinds of data on projects and things I document. It's a wiki, sure, but it's a Mac Wiki and not a generic one. It's far slicker than the web ones I've used, and that makes all the difference in ease of use to me.

The release notes are pretty extensive, and while I didn't see anything earth shaking to me, I'm sure all the memory leaks and general fixes are going to be things I appreciate over the weeks and months to come. Sweet.

I found this on a tweet I got this morning and I love this guy's approach to using standards. In fact, I think it can be applied to a far greater range of things than standards. It's probably really good advice for life:

1. If it hurts when you do it, stop doing it.
2. Shut up and eat your vegetables.
3. Assume people have common sense.

Golden Advice, people. Can't get much better than this.

If it hurts, then stop doing it. Figure out a better way. Realize that the pain is telling you something. Don't be a lemming. Find a better solution, a better way. This is the beginning line of virtually every great success story. Just do it.

Shut up and eat your vegetables. Realize there's no free lunch, and you're going to have to do the work. You're going to have to pound the keys. Practice. Effort. That's the only thing that's really going to pay off in the end. Just pipe down and get to it.

Assume people have common sense. If not, don't worry about them - they have far bigger problems than you're going to be able to solve.

Sage advice indeed. Love it.

I got a tweet today saying that Acorn 2.5.1 was out with a nice list of fixes and additions. Very nice. Still my preference over Elements and Gimp. Simple, powerful, clean. Great Mac software.

I was updating the configuration of WP Super Cache on my WordPress installs at HostMonster this afternoon and noticed that Google Chrome was saying there was an update - I said 'yes', and saw that it's up to 7.0.517.13. OK... nothing in the release notes on this, maybe I'm just a little early.

As for the "Don't be Evil"... the problem is that Chrome is a really good browser. It's a few in the management that I have issues with. So that's the rationalization I'm going with. Yup. It'll work.