Chrome

Google just released its own web browser, Chrome
Unfortunately, it's only available for Windows, so I don't have a chance to try it out yet. But ye masses under Microsoft's thrall should give it a go. Google promises that Linux and Mac-compatible versions will be out soon though.

Market share in the Browser Wars is roughly at 70% Internet Explorer, 20% Firefox and 10% Safari.

Ultimately, I think the release of Chrome will hurt Firefox more than IE. The people who use IE use it because it came bundled in their computer, and are ignorant of, or won't bother to consider the other browsers in the market. This is the only reason I can imagine anyone using IE rather than Opera and Firefox, two browsers that are superior to it in every conceivable way.

These diehards will not switch even if Chrome makes your CD drive spit out gold coins.

If Chrome turns out to be awesome- and with Google's resources and expertise behind it, this is a fair assumption- Firefox might be swept into oblivion.

Laptop Buying in California

My laptop fried over the summer, so I had to get a new one. I had an aunt working in an electronics distributor so I managed to get one at a pretty good price (a HP for RM3000)

I'm in California at the moment to recover from jet lag. Another aunt asked me for help to buy a computer. So a good time to do some (belated) cross-continental comparison shopping.

It turns out, that my model costs about $600 (RM1980-ish) over in California! And that wasn't even the cheapest available model. I could have gotten a Dell for $420 (RM1386-ish). So much for our long-cherished assumption that electronics would be cheaper in Malaysia than Silicon Valley.

Oh, but this doesn't include the $40 (RM132-ish) Circuit City charges for "optimization" - i.e. removing all the junk software from Vista (apparently, if we don't do this the computer will be inoperational in a matter of months). Not an issue for me, of course, since I haven't used Windows in 4 years. (Go Ubuntu Linux!) But it shocks me what little regard Microsoft has for their customers' well-being, and how much nonsense those customers are willing to put up with to use Microsoft's wares when superior alternatives are available for free.