Web Browser Troubles

A few weeks ago I went to Disneyland with my wife and oldest grandson. We found an incredible deal at one of the Disney hotels and booked the trip for a huge discount. I bundled my park tickets with the hotel and all seemed to go well. Then I tried to make park reservations. Unfortunately I couldn't. I thought maybe because I didn't fully pay for the trip and so I paid for everything. A few days later I tried to make the park reservations. I ended up calling a reservation specialist. She told me to try using Chrome as my problems were related to my browser. I didn't believe her but did as she said. Guess what? She was right.

A few days after getting my Disney reservations sorted out, I tried reserving a rental car from Hertz. I attempted to log in using my favorite browser only to have it spin endlessly and never get to the login-successful page. At first I thought it might be because I used the wrong password. Then I remembered my experience with the Disney website and pulled up Chrome to see if it was the same problem. Changing to Chrome worked and I was able to log in. Ultimately I went with another rental car company as they had a less expensive option. It isn't always the case as I have a great discount with Hertz.

It used to be that Netscape was the standard browser and everyone tried to be bug-for-bug compatible with it. That means that they tried to mimic all aspects of the browser, including the bugs. Netscape became Mozilla and is now known as Firefox. Now it seems that Chrome has displaced Firefox as the browser that everyone uses as a baseline for compatibility testing. If you go to use your favorite browser at a website and it doesn't seem to behave correctly, try Chrome. If it still doesn't behave then its not you, its the website.

Apple, Google, and Microsoft

This evening was a monthly get together for friends from the office. We all met at a local restaurant and enjoyed catching up with former colleagues. One just happens to be working at Apple. There were several televisions located in the restaurant bar and so I kept catching glimpses of the football game going on in the background. While I enjoyed keeping up with the game, it was more interesting to watch the various commercials. They alternated between the Google Chrome book, the Apple iPhone 5S, and Microsoft's Surface tablet.

Naturally the conversation started discussing the various products in the advertisements. I talked about my hatred of the touchscreen fad that seems to be invading computers these days. One of my coworkers mentioned that I am a power user that has spent way too much time with a mouse or track pad and don't represent the masses. While I interact with my computer, most users simply retrieve information. I couldn't argue with that.

Next someone mentioned that one of my coworkers had a Microsoft tablet computer. One question I have had is if there are a large number of apps for the tablet. My coworker explained that he had the Pro model and so it was a real computer running Windows 8. Lesser version of the Microsoft tablet don't have many applications available to them and should be avoided. Everyone at the table seemed to agree with the comments. It also explained why Windows is embracing the the touchscreen interface so much.

The conversation ended with Apple. It was enlightening and my friend did not divulge any confidential information. However I don't want to go into too many details just in case I get my friend in trouble. Rest assured it was a good conversation and I was able to discuss some of my pet peeves with Apple products. I'm not sure it will do much good but it was nice to get that off my chest.

Finally Fedora Core 18 Is Usable

A few months ago I decided to update the Linux version on the desktop computer in my home office. I used it as a chance to decide if I wanted to stick with Fedora or move to Ubuntu. We are moving from CentOS to Ubuntu at work and so I wanted to start with Fedora just to be able to compare and contrast multiple flavors of Linux.

Unfortunately the upgrade from Fedora Core 10 to Fedora Core 18 was not painless. There was the problem with importing my old e-mail that I was able to figure out. The worst problem appeared about a week after the upgrade. For some reason, my Firefox browser kept crashing. I thought I could just download Google's Chrome, but that didn't even load. Previously I had been running the 32-bit version of Linux and upgraded to the 64-bit version. I figured there was some library mismatch in the 64-bit versions of the software and that by constantly sending crash reports to the developers, it would eventually get fixed. In the mean time, I just used the browser on my laptop.

I work in the Bay area during the week and fly back to Utah on weekends. Every Saturday, I would patiently update my system only to discover the bug with my browser hadn't been fixed. One perk I have with my job is that I get to work from home one week per month and this was that week. On Monday, I gave the old update a shot and cranked up the browser. I let it sit there and several minutes later the browser was still running. Next I cranked up Pandora and filled my office with music. It has been running all week with no crashes. I have yet to give Chrome a try, but I don't like Chrome and avoid it if I can.

Running the latest versions of software can be a little dangerous sometimes, as I was reminded. However you can send in the bug and crash reports. Eventually things will get fixed and the updated software becomes the stable version. Just be sure you have a second computer to use in case things don't work.

Three Browsers

Yesterday I was trying to hunt down a very annoying problem with database reporting. In the course of troubleshooting I ended up installing yet another browser on my Windows laptop at work. So now I have Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Firefox all on the same machine. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

My preference is Firefox. It runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Internet Explorer only runs on Windows. Chrome is something new and so I have tried to avoid it until recently. The one advantage Chrome has over the other two browsers is security. If you need to visit a website where there is a chance it will try to install a virus or malware on your PC, Chrome is the browser to use as it does the best job of keeping that from happening.

The only problem with Chrome is its user interface. Google (the developer of Chrome) does a great job of adhering to the KISS principle. KISS is an acronym that stands for Keep It Simple Stupid. While that generally works to its advantage for its search engine website, it becomes a negative for its browser.

The sad thing is that I use all three browsers. If I am reading some of my old e-mail that uses Microsoft Exchange Server, I use Internet Explorer because the interface is so much better. If I am using my work computer back on the boat and surfing the net, I use Chrome just in case I unintentionally visit a site that may try to zap my computer. Then I use Firefox for everything else. Wouldn't life be simpler if the best features of all three products could be found in one?