Browsers Part II

And now, the exciting conclusion of my browser reviews!

OPERA

Opera was a browser I was familiar with, but not in a way you might expect. I have used Opera as the web browser on my Wii video game console, as they were the company willing to step forward and design a browser for use with the new Wii remote way back in 2007. The browser was relatively functional on the Wii, if not a little clumsy due to the Wii Remote's poor interface with the tiny buttons on new websites. More recently, I downloaded the Opera browser for my Android smartphone as an alternative to the Android browser.

The Opera browser on my Macbook Air immediately reminds me of Chrome in terms of it's simple layout and lightning speed, and is actually a little less spartan than google's creation. I can't understate how quick this browser is! The zoom feature is actually quite nice as well, compared to Safari. It has a slow gradient zoom in and out, as opposed to Safari's quick jumps to various stages of zoom. The "speed dial" page is also quite nice and reminiscent of Safari's "top pages." I was pleasantly surprised by Opera!

FIREFOX

Known as the browser that killed Internet Explorer, Firefox was a browser I had used for years. With Internet Explorer's propensity for spyware and malware, Firefox was a great choice in the mid-2000's for a browser that was functional, included tabbed browsing, and wasn't vulnerable to everything and everything. But, over time, this advantage has eroded, and the Firefox I once knew and loved had become bogged down with too many features and buttons. The layout is just cluttered.

No more! Now it looks a lot like Chrome and Opera, and had the politeness to import my bookmarks, favorite sites and homepage from Safari! How nice!

THE VERDICT

I gotta say, although for familiarity's sake I will probably continue to use Safari... Opera and Firefox is damn good browsers. With a good combination of speed and simplicity, and some more bells and whistles that I've come to expect, it seems like a happy medium between Safari and the too-basic Chrome.

More Video Editing

For our final project in Tech Resources, team Steve Job's army created a preliminary version of Artex, our lesson plan database for arts educators. In our quest to create a more complete product, and fill up some time on our presentation, I decided to make a short introductory video to Artex. I knew it would look great on our homepage if visitors were greeted with an approachable medium for explaining our angle. I want to use this blog entry to explain a little bit about the process of creating the video.

I knew that I wanted the video to be introductory in nature, but not necessarily explain Artex itself. I was more interested in a way to explain why something like Artex was important. So I posed a simple question to a few of my colleagues in arts education: Why is it important that arts educators share ideas? The core of our project was this sharing. But why should we in the first place? My responses were cultivated via the internal webcam on my Macbook Air using the Photo Booth program. Each response was about 1 minute long.

With about ten minutes of responses, I combed through and found answers which I felt addressed both Artex and the prompt in an intelligent and articulate way. I imported the videos into iMovie and began my editing process. I actually tracked many of the answers in chronological order through each video, since the arguments started broad (which I liked) and became more nuanced towards the end (which I also liked.) I tried to connect ideas that linked with the previous idea to give the video a sense of narrative. I also had a little bit of fun editing Dave's response, which gave the video a sense of humor. Luckily, he has a good sense of humor and didn't mind!

I chose a song from the Wii Shop Channel from the Super Smash Bros Brawl soundtrack for it's upbeat melody. I didn't edit to closely to the music, like I did in my previous video, and was more focused on making a coherent narrative with the responses.

Browser's Castle

This is Bowser from Nintendo's Mario Bros Series.

This is Bowser, my three-year-old pug.

But, today I'm not here to talk about Bowser or Bowser. I'm here to talk about... browsers! While I pride myself on my relative internet savvy, I realized that for the last four years or so, I had been exclusively using Safari, Apple's web browser that comes pre-loaded on it's Macbook line of computers. I decided to give each browser a spin for a little while and make some quick comments on each one.

SAFARI

This had been my go-to browser for the last few years, and I'm quite happy with its functionality. In particular, the grid of "most visited" pages is what stands out as unique. By far the most immediately useful function that keeps me using Safari for casual use is the ease by which you can manage bookmarked pages. Opening all of my webcomics in the folder in their own tabs in one shot is as easy as command+click.

CHROME

Chrome was one of the browsers I was not familiar with, and I was immediately taken with how spartan the interface is. Compared to say, Firefox or Safari, you just have the web address, back, forward, reload, and a tab button. There is something to be said for the simplicity and speed of the browser, but some of the more complicated functions can be a little fiddly.

INTERNET EXPLORER

In typical Windows/Microsoft fashion, downloading Internet Explorer was complicated endeavor, with an indirect path through multiple links to pages of wasted internet space. Internet Explorer got a bad rep in the last decade for it's poor line of defense against spyware, malware and viruses (or so popular opinion suggests.) At my previous place of employment, I used IE 7 on Windows XP, which was frankly a slow and unintuitive mess. But, IE 8 seems pretty functional. In particular, I like the left-handed tabs for history and search for easy access, instead of keeping them on the top of the screen. IE 9 is only available on Windows 7, so I'll have to see if I can get on a PC to try that out soon.

Look for PART II of my browser series, where I take on Opera and Firefox, and my verdict for the best browser on the web!

-Rob