Clare’s Soapbox

I feel as though I have dissappeared off the planet for a few weeks - we’ll thank holidaying (fun!) and H1N1 (at least I hope after having a yukky flu shot - that weren’t no common cold! - not so fun).

So after my time using different browsers I have reverted back - no not all the way back to internet explorer - back to Chrome.  It is my winner - 3 words - simplicity, speed and multiple pages… those were what won it for me over Firefox, IE and Safari (in that order)!!

Also started up an i-google page (had one before but i think the gadgets are much better than 18 months ago when I first tried setting one up - it is great - have all I need in one page - email, Facebook, news, weather, currency converter… Cool!

Would like to give Wiki’s a go but can’t think of a need but think they could be very cool for group presentations… will keep that one in the back of my mind - external this semester…

Good luck for this semester everyone - hope we all learn lots - and can remember it…

Well I am very happy to leave Firefox behind me - it was doing my head in, as I have been away (see my other blog for more details and photo’s) I am now starting with Safari this week - so far it’s been ok but I don’t like not being able to have pages as you do with other browsers… more simple but and I do like with Safari and Chrome being able to easily organise the things I want easy or immediate access to.  Firefox was full of features but I couldn’t seem to organise it so that I could get to what I wanted easily… well now I shall have to get back to working my way through the rest of this course before Uni starts back for real…

After a couple of days of Firefox I am getting somewhat frustrated with it - it has a whole heap of features but it just does not have the simplicity of Chrome.  I’m finding the bookmarking system difficult to use as it doesn’t give me options for putting things in folders like IE does??  The most visited tag is sometimes helpful but not like the boxes on Chrome.  Will hopefully get some time tomorrow to have more of a play with it and get my head around it but it’s not one that is quick to get started on…

What do the rest of you use??

How easy it is to quench our thirst on a hot summers day with a glass of clean, fresh water - not so for so many of the world’s population.  If this ability was taken from you (or me) would we demand it as a right?

This editorial from PLoS explores this fundamental need for all humanity…

Clean Water Should be Recognized as a Human Right

Some more garden pic’s - my first snowpea and some really gorgeous pansies…

Well today is my last day of using Chrome in my 3 week experiment with browsers… and I can say I have thoroughly enjoyed using Chrome.  Have liked its simplicity and speed, can access everything I want to in a really straightforward way - at this point I would continue to use it instead of IE - haven’t come up against any of those sites that only run with IE and would just use it when needed… but tomorrow I will be faithful to the experiment and move on to using Firefox for the next week.

I just discovered something about Chrome which is very cool.  I had to close it and had open at the time gmail, Facebook and my new blog (as you do).  When I opened Chrome again in the bottom corner under recently closed pages I could click one button and it reopened all of them.  I like it!  I’ve also now publicly launched my new blog “Clare’s Church Gardening” - will add link at side.  I adverstised it through Facebook and have already had over 30 visits in my first half day.  This blogging thing is cool!

Well I ventured out excitedly yesterday to see if I could get a blog site which I could use more for Christian ministry type purposes (I’m a Theol student currently so wanted somewhere to excitedly talk to others about dead guys - not Jesus - He’s an alive guy, but loving Church History particularly!)  Anyway - I tried google’s blog site Blogger and after battling to do what I wanted gave up and went in search of somewhere else to get a free blog.  After a suggestion on the Murdoch “rules for getting a blog” page I tried WordPress and discovered that it’s the same as this site (ie. Murdoch uses WordPress).  Finding this really user-friendly so I now have another site all of my own through them.  Haven’t launched it for public use yet as I want to play and learn a bit more but having fun seeing what I can do.  There’s no stopping me now - this is great!!

I’m so excited! My first winter bulb is beginning to flower - it is a jonquil - a bit like a daffodil and it’s a shame that I can send the smell to you also - they are so fragrant and yummy (but no you can’t eat them!).  Still loving Chrome - no problems as yet!

Well one day into using Chrome and I like the simplicity of it and that it remembers and puts up pictures of websites I’ve been to often/recently so I can get to them quickly.  It seems to be a bit faster than IE as well.  So far so good - have only had to click into another browser (Firefox) in order to complete Thing #7 installing the LibX browser - not sure how much I will use it, but as I’m not currently in classes will have to wait and see.  For now Chrome is going well!