I have recently switched to using Xubuntu 11.04 for my media PC installation. XBMC is my choice for controlling all of this (I may write another post sometime explaining my setup in more detail, but for now this is about a specific problem).

I use the media box for more than just watching/listening to stuff, not much more, but enough that every now and then I need to come out of XBMC (although without quitting). There is a handy keyboard shortcut to toggle between fullscreen and windowed mode ‘\’.

However, when I switched into windowed mode, all I would see was a black screen and a mouse-cursor (another major bugbear with me and XBMC, but that can wait for another time). After searching online and finding nothing, I decided it was time to just start hacking around until I found something that at least helped me diagnose the problem.

Turns out it didn’t take me very long at all, once I’d found the Window Manager settings in XFCE, I noticed that compositing was turned on. Turning this off sorted out my problems straight away. Although I love the compositing features in Linux in general, they are not needed for a media pc, so I have no problems leaving this off.

I hope this helps someone, and if it’s me reading this suffering from the same problem again, then you should have remembered this and not wasted so much time looking for the problem again you idiot!

So, a couple of weeks ago, I switched. To try to see if I could cope with Chrome as my everyday browser. I thought I’d write a short piece on my experiences:

Chrome 5 dev channel vs Firefox 3.6.4b.

Note that this is not a ‘fair’ test, Firefox had many many more installed extensions, this is only my observations so please don’t complain if I wasn’t fair.

I’ll highlight anything that I found to be different or of note between the browsers, if I don’t mention something (like page rendering for example), then that’s probably because I don’t notice a difference.

Start up time.
This was pretty much the main reason that I started looking at another browser, my Firefox set up at work takes so long to start up, we’re talking minutes rather than seconds, and that’s too long for me. I am fairly certain this is due to the number of extensions installed, but Chrome is very very quick at loading up. Chrome 1-0

Adbock Plus
I hate ads. Actually, that’s a little harsh. I hate annoying in my face ads that are irrelevant to me. Unfortunately this is the vast majority of ads that are found on the internet, so I block them. In Firefox, I use the excellent Adblock Plus extension. Therefore I was quite pleased to find this extension available also in Chrome. However, in Chrome (and this is probably a limitation of Chrome rather than the extension writers) the ads show up first and are then actively hidden from me. Causing my page to flicker as it’s loading. This is only slightly less annoying than the actual ads themselves. Firefox levels to 1-1

Pinned Tabs
I first found out about pinned tabs, through an extension in Firefox, however I didn’t realise just how much better the pinned tabs are in Chrome, especially in the dev channel. I use the pinned tabs to have Gmail, Twitter and Google Reader open all the time. The great thing (so great in fact, that it might keep me using Chrome) about the pinned tabs in Chrome, is that when the title of the page changes, a subtle glow shines over the tab, alerting me that something has changed (a new email, tweet or reader article). Also typing a new address into a pinned tab, opens it up in a new tab, so that your pinned tabs aren’t disturbed. This is a big win for Chrome, 2-1

Memory Usage
Ok, so Chrome has a separate process for each tab. Whoop-de-do. Firefox almost never crashes for me, I don’t tend to go scooting off around the internet onto dodgy sites, and I tend to avoid flash (more on flash in a sec) if I can. Chrome takes up an exorbitant amount of memory. Firefox equalises again; 2-2

Youtube Videos
For some reason, youtube videos look terrible in Chrome, then shear and tear all over the place. Not sure if this is a dev channel thing or not, but Firefox doesn’t have that problem. 2-3 to Firefox

Tab Performance
Seemingly, when a tab has been open for a long time in Chrome, the rendering is removed? I’m not really sure what happens, all I know is that when I come back to a long un-used tab, it’s white, and takes a couple of seconds for Chrome to render the contents of the tab again. It’s not really a problem, but it’s annoying, and a problem I didn’t have with Firefox. Firefox takes a bigger lead; 2-4

More On Tabs
So I’m scrolled half way down a page in Firefox, and I press F5 (refresh). The page reloads (back at the top) then Firefox handily jumps me back to down where I was previously. Chrome seems to try to do this, but more often than not, it’s slightly off from where I was before. Which tbh, is damn annoying! Surely it can’t be difficult to put me back where I was. Or not even move me at all?? Firefox romping away now; 2-5

Fancy effects
This is neither hear nor there, but I felt like giving Chrome another point (I did say this wasn’t fair). Opening a new tab in Chrome is nice, they slide. Same when closing them. It’s just nice. Chrome generally looks newer than Firefox.Nicer than Firefox; 3-5

Extensions
Firefox has soooo many more extensions than Chrome. I know Chrome is catching up very quickly, but still. There are some extensions such as Smart Bookmarks Bar that just haven’t been produced yet for Chrome. Others such as the Define extension, are just not possible to do in Chrome due to Google not allowing the user-interface to be modified.
Chrome’s only redeeming feature when it comes to extensions, is being able to install and un-install them without having to restart the browser. But still: Firefox scores again 3-6

In summary, it seems that Firefox is trouncing Chrome still (for me anyhow). However, those glowing pinned tabs, and the loading time and the look and feel of Chrome make it hard to go back to Firefox.
Perhaps I’ll have a look at fixing those 2 issues in Firefox tomorrow, but as of now. Chrome stays.

I just finished watching the Google Wave video on YouTube, here.

Google have come along with a new technology called Wave. Watch the video to find out more about it (be warned, its a video from the Google I/O developer conference, so its a little techy). Basically they have stepped back from the way we currently communicate with each other (e-mail, IM, SMS) etc and, reinvented it. Its hard to explain, just watch the video (its long though).

There are times when I think Google are becoming the new Microsoft, the way they’re taking over everything and the way they buy new companies, however… Google keep proving me wrong, time and time again they surprise me.

I’ll try and summarise the features that I can remember (guess they’re the good ones):

• Live – All communication when using Wave is live, even the typing, so no more “Buddy is typing…”. Waves come and go in your inbox, even the search is live.
• Open Source – Woo! This means that other people can create their own Wave servers. Different wave servers can communicate with each other, using something called Foundation
• Collaboration – A wave is basically a smart document, or conversation. A smart docusation if you would. All the people involved with the Wave can edit the Wave at the same time and all the changes are displayed live on all the clients. Impressive
• Playback – When you are added to a Wave after it has already started, you will see all the edits/comments/conversations in the Wave already. Google have come up with a playback feature, which lets you see how the Wave was constructed. Another impressive feature.
• Extensions – Google demonstrated some pretty cool extensions, check them out in the video.
• Rosy – Live Translation! This was probably the most impressive feature of Wave, Google demonstrated two people conversing, one in French and another in English, Wave was translating what was written, in real time!

Overall I was very impressed with Google Wave, obviously as a developer I find this thing interesting anyway, but hopefully this will change the way people communicate world wide. For the better. Open protocols, Open source.

Google have impressed me today.