Haven't had much time to post lately, but wanted to quickly say that the new Google Chrome  browser totally rocks!  I'm waiting on some files to transcode and thought I'd type up a quick post using this cool new browser...and the new blogging tool I'm implementing for Media-Geek members.  Anywho...

Three days old (publically released Tuesday) and this browser has me wondering when Microsoft will get out of the browser game.  I know the answer is never, but come on...have you tried IE8?  Please tell me I'm not the only idiot who thought IE8 BETA 2 would be an improvement over BETA 1.   

I've been using Safari for most of my general browsing for several months now, and of course have Firefox 2 and 3 tucked in to my quick launch bar as well.  Unfortunately, as a Web developer, I have to keep a few versions of IE around; but you can bet you won't find it in my quick launch bar anymore.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a new favorite browser, and it's lightning fast. I downloaded Apple's Safari 3 Public BETA a week or so ago to troubleshoot a log-in issue one of our members was having, and next thing you know I've installed it on all of my PCs at home and the office. Safari 3 provides tabbed browsing similar to IE7 and Firefox 2, which is nice for those of us that have multiple pages/sites open simultaneously constantly. The first thing that impressed me was its look and layout, but I quickly realized that its primary advantage was its performance.

Apple is quick to point out on the homepage for Safari its performance advantages. They claim Safari can load pages up to 3 times faster than Opera, 2 times faster than IE7, and 1.7 times faster than Firefox. Pretty impressive numbers, but what browser doesn't claim to be the fastest? As you can imagine, some of Media-Geek.com's member services are bandwidth intensive, and others require multiple scripts to be loaded by your browser. I did a few rudimentary tests accessing various features of Media-Geek.com using Safari, IE7, and Firefox and was simply amazed at the difference in load times.

Late nights, early mornings, and a couple of days with no sleep at all over the last few weeks makes Larry want to buy stock in Starbucks. The new site is progressing well, but I just can't let go of the IE6 issues as easily as I thought I could. They're really no big deal, just some minor cosmetic issues, but when you put all this effort into a project you want visitors to at least see it the way it was designed...even those who choose not to update their FREE browsers.

If you've been here recently, you'll notice I've already changed the new site's layout. The concept is to provide a clean, user-friendly interface; not a fancy, schmancy look. I think this new layout accomplishes that, so I'm sticking with it. Of course, I've had to re-do much of the layout work I'd done on the previous design, but I think it's worth it. Now I just need a MAC user willing to be a "guinea pig".