Something about a recent update to the Chromium browser on my Linux machine borked one of my user profiles.
No big deal. I’ll just set it back up, right?
Well sure. It took a couple of minutes. But one of my big pet peeves about Google Chrome is this ridiculous idea that the full URL doesn’t need to be displayed.
We could argue the merits of this idea elsewhere (feel free to leave a comment below or reply to me on Twitter if you feel strongly about it), but at least for technologists who build, support, debug, or otherwise work very closely with web properties, WE NEED TO SEE THE WHOLE FREAKING URL, GOOGLE.
Since my user profiles normally keep this setting, I hadn’t needed to solve this problem in a fresh way for quite some time. The old methods involved using chrome://flags (which I definitely used in the past) or even installing an extension (EW!). Many of those solutions persist out there on the web (or even in the Google Chrome help center’s community).
Here It Is: Right-Click in the Address Bar
We’re now formally calling it the “omnibox,” but whichever way you refer to it, you want to:
Perhaps someone out there woke up one day and thought to themselves:
You know what I want? I want nearly every website I visit today to throw a pop-up in my face offering to notify me about whatever they find exciting! That way, when I’m minding my own business trying to get stuff done, I’ll have brand new distractions to prevent me from being able to concentrate!
…but that isn’t something I’ve dreamed of, personally. And you may have detected a mild tone of sarcasm here (if not, I apologize that it wasn’t more obvious), but the bottom line is that I really don’t want to be bothered.
I don’t want to be bothered with the question about whether I’d like to get notifications, not to mention notifications themselves!
Good News: You Can Block These in Your Browser
And I mean you can block the questions as well as the actual notifications.
Thanks to Steve Gibson from Gibson Research Corporation, who mentioned this on a recent episode of the Security Now! podcast, here’s a handy set of instructions for you.
Time needed: 2 minutes
How to Block Websites from Offering Notifications in Google Chrome
Open Chrome’s 3-dot menu and click “Settings”
Using any desktop version of Google Chrome*, locate the 3-dot menu (from Windows and Linux, this is typically at the top right), click it, and then choose “Settings” from the menu that drops down.
*or Chromium, if you’re rocking the open source version like I am.Security Now!
Click “Advanced” (at the bottom), then find “Content Settings” (or “Site Settings”) in the “Privacy and Security” section
The setting we’re looking for is hidden under the “Advanced” section, which you can find by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the “Settings” page that opens up. Once you click “Advanced,” the page expands and you’ll see a new section called “Privacy and Security” which contains a number of rows of options.
Look for the option labeled “Content Settings” (that’s what it was called in my version) or “Site Settings” (this is what Steve Gibson’s instructions said, so his version—and maybe yours too!—might be different).
Click on the “Notifications” option, then move the “Ask before sending” slider to the left
When you click “Notifications,” a new screen opens up, and if your version of Google Chrome still has the default setting, you’ll see a line near the top that reads, “Ask before sending (recommended).”
When you move that slider to the left, it turns the notifications requests off, and you should see the text change to “Blocked”.
Voila! No more requests from websites!
(While you’re here, you should see a list of any specific sites you’ve either “blocked” or “allowed” notifications from, and you can review/edit your settings.)
How to Block Notification Requests in Firefox
If you use Mozilla Firefox, which is my “daily driver” browser these days, you can block these notifications requests there as well. Here’s how:
Open a new tab in Firefox and type the following in the address bar:
about:config
You will most likely see a warning that says, “This might void your warranty!” If so, click “I accept the risk!” to continue.
You’ll see a search box at the top of a long list of configuration items. Type in:
webnotifications
…and press “Enter”
Locate the setting named, “dom.notifications.enabled” and toggle it to “false.” (I did this by double-clicking it.) It should turn “bold” in appearance, and the “status” column should change to “modified.”
Close the tab. You’re done!
How to Test Your Browser to Confirm the New Settings
As Steve Gibson pointed out, Mozilla (makers of Firefox) were kind enough to build a page just so we can test our browsers to see if the notifications settings change was successful or not.
Well actually, the page was built to serve as part of Mozilla’s excellent developer documentation, but if you visit it from a browser that has the notifications enabled (which they are in most browsers by default), it will pop up a request every time!
OK it’s not every day that I get super excited about new WordPress features. But today, Matt announced something that made me jump out of my chair and yell for joy.
The idea is that you create your content in Google Docs, using all of the lovely collaborative features like multiple (even simultaneous!) authors, commenting, great editing tools, cloud-based storage, and so forth.
Then… once it’s ready to go, push a button and voila! — the content shows up in your WordPress site.
The magic happens thanks to Jetpack, which we users of the WordPress software use to connect up our self-hosted sites to Automattic’s WordPress.com infrastructure.
So… you need to have the Jetpack plugin enabled and your site connected.
Then you need to use the WordPress.com for Google Docs add-in (that link goes to the Google Web Store page for the add-in, but you can also get it by going to “Add-ons” inside a Google Doc).
As much as I love the WordPress editor, this is a game changer. I live in Google Docs, especially since I acquired my first Chromebook about a year ago.
There’s one more hiccup. The authentication passes through multiple layers (after all, you wouldn’t want just anyone editing a Google Doc to be able to push content to your website, would you?):
Your Google Account (make sure you’re signed in to the one you want)
Your WordPress.com account — meaning the account that you used to connect your self-hosted WordPress site up to the Jetpack/WordPress.com infrastructure. (Here again: make you’re signed in to the right one!)
Your local WordPress account (meaning the account that you sign in to your actual WordPress site with)
It was at that last authentication step that I hit a snag:
I had never activated the Jetpack JSON API on this site. So… I had to go through the Authorization process one more time after fixing that.
But hey! Needing to screenshot an error message gave me a chance to see how images work in this whole process. I’ll let you know once this content gets pushed to my WordPress site!
Update
After hitting the “Save Draft” button, my content got magically pushed to this site. (If you hadn’t figured it out, I wrote the first draft of this in Google Docs!)
The image came along with it!
But…. my cropping didn’t. The image above is the full screenshot. In Google Docs, I had cropped it to get rid of the 37 Chrome tabs and so forth (hyperbole, I know, but that’s only one of my 3 current Chrome windows!).
All in all, this is a fantastic experience. There’s even a button in Google Docs to “Preview” the post on the live site, and of course a way to update the draft from Google Docs.
I’m guessing you’ll have to manage your own workflow for which version is the latest. I assume if I make changes on my site, but then hit the “Update Draft” button in Google Docs, that version will overwrite whatever is on the site. But this is to be expected. (And I haven’t tested it yet, so… who knows?)
One of my great disappointments in life came several years ago when I made the switch to a 64-bit OS for the first time: a 64-bit build of Google Chrome simply did not exist!
OK, I might be exaggerating my disappointment. But only slightly.
But life went on. After a while, my incessant checking for news on this all-important development slowed from daily… to weekly… to… I can’t even remember when I last looked.
And to be honest, I haven’t cared. 32-bit Chrome has been fine… until the last couple of months. I’ve noticed it has begun to consume more and more of my aging laptop’s finite memory. This could, of course, have something to do with the sheer number of tabs and background apps (running in Chrome) that I have open. But that’s beside the point.
Your browser is, after all, likely to be your single most-used piece of software—especially if (like me) you long ago ditched other email clients.
So it came as quite the surprise last night when the Ars Technica announcement zipped by one of my news feeds.
But it was late when I saw it, so I waited till this morning to install it.
The upgrade process to 64-bit Google Chrome was fairly simple, but one step left me questioning whether it had worked, so…
How to Upgrade to the 64-Bit Version of Chrome
There’s currently no upgrade path within Chrome itself to get you over to the 64-bit development channel—making the switch is a manual opt-in process. Here’s how to do it:
Head on over to the official Chrome download page and look for the line that says “You can also download Chrome for Windows 64-bit.” Click the bold words “Windows 64-bit,” which will switch things around so that when you hit the big blue “Download Chrome” button, you’ll get the one you want. Currently, you’re out of luck if you’re a Mac user. (Linux users have had access to 64-bit Chromium for a while now.)
Optional step: At this point, I bookmarked all my open tabs just in case they got lost during the upgrade process. I wasn’t sure how this was gonna go down… so, I’d rather be safe than sorry. I then closed Chrome.
Double-click the Chrome-Setup.exe file that you just downloaded and let it run. This ran and completed, leaving me wondering what the heck had happened. Did it update my Chrome shortcuts in the Start Menu, Taskbar, and Desktop? I don’t know? Will I still be launching the 32-bit version of I click one? I don’t know!
Launch Chrome again. If you’re experience is like mine, all your tabs will reopen and everything will go back to the way it was. Hmmmmm….
Head over to your hamburger menu and click the “About Google Chrome” item (or just open a tab and type chrome://chrome/ in the address bar). You’ll see a message that reads something pretty close to “Google Chrome is almost finished updating. Relaunch Chrome to complete the update.” (I didn’t screen shot it, but you’ll know it when you see it.) There’s a handy “Relaunch” button.
When Chrome restarts, check chrome://chrome/ again. You should see a shiny new version message like Version 37.0.2062.94 unknown-m (64-bit). The beauty is the “(64-bit)” at the end, of course.
So How Is It?
OK so it’s admittedly a bit early for real serious feedback here. But my preliminary thoughts are pretty solid.
So far, I can’t tell that it’s making any better use of memory (this is one of its promised benefits thanks to they availability of better addressing). But, it’s nice and zippy. The memory usage may not have actually been the real problem I’d been experiencing with the 32-bit version. We’ll see.
Fonts are visibly better. For whatever reason, Chrome has been really bad with font rendering… so much so that I almost made the switch to Firefox over it! This has made me happy.
I’ve had no problems with any of my extensions. I wasn’t expecting any, but the announcement post on the Chromium blog and the Ars story both mentioned lack of support for 32-bit NPAPI plugins. This means you may need to update Silverlight and Java. (I haven’t tried Netflix yet, but I don’t use it on my computer very often anyway. We’ll see what happens.)
All in all… so far, so good. I’ll plan on a more thorough write-up after I’ve had some time behind the wheel. But for now… I’d say go for it!
Is your laptop absolutely crawling? Can you drive to Starbucks, buy coffee beans, come home and grind them, boil water, dump everything in your French press, wait 4 minutes for it to steep, pour your freshly-brewed cup of coffee into a mug and still get back to your desk in the time it takes your machine to reboot?
That’s where I was earlier this week. And tired of it!
So let’s just say I’m not running a high-end laptop here. Mine is squarely in the middle of the road.
It was perfectly usable 2 years ago when I bought it, but I made it out of my local Best Buy with $20 left of my $500 budget at the time. (I decided a long time ago that laptops are almost disposable, so I refuse to pay big bucks for them.)
But 2 years of updates to Windows 7 (which I love, by the way… another reason why I don’t want to buy a new one yet), 2 years of installing various bits of software, a really bad habit of having 50-60 Chrome tabs open at once, and a tendency to run Photoshop or InDesign (or both) all adds up to a really terrible user experience.
I’d already maxed out the RAM… I did that about 6 months after I bought it.
So… what was left to do?
Well… SSD envy set in about a year ago when I bought my wife an HP Ultrabook. She gets a higher laptop budget because she replaces them less often, and she doesn’t subject them to all the abuse of travel nearly as often as I do. Oh… and she likes them light and thin. And boy is hers ever light and thin! But it’s also blazingly fast. I’m talking… Windows 7 reboots completely in under 10 seconds. Forget that cup of coffee and keep working!
One of the reasons the thing is so darn fast is because of the Solid State Drive (SSD) that was installed from the factory. SSDs, if you aren’t already aware, are much faster than traditional hard drives because they have no moving parts. That’s right, no motors or spindles… just pure NAND flash memory (usually), and lots and lots of speed.
So… I began scheming back then about when (and how) I could get an SSD into my laptop. But the problem is that I do have much more significant storage needs. My laptop has a 500GB drive, and I keep it nearly full with stuff. Could I be more diligent and picky about what stays on my hard drive? Sure. But that takes time. Plus, I’m always of the opinion that I’d rather have that obscure file with me when I’m traveling because of the one time I get somewhere and need something that other people would’ve left on an external drive back home.
Why is that a problem for SSDs? Well… they don’t tend to do so well with higher capacities. And they’re expensive — quite unreasonably so when it comes to the higher capacities. In fact, had I been looking at a 500GB (or bigger) SSD, I’d have been back in the “that costs more than a new machine” zone.
So a few months ago I ran across this nifty idea. Some manufacturers had begun to produce “SSD Caddies” that take the place of an optical (DVD or CD-ROM) drive in a laptop. The idea is that you yank the DVD drive that came with your laptop and drop an SSD into one of these caddies and stick it in your machine instead.
Hmmmmm…. but IÂ use that DVD drive, don’t I?
I decided to find out. When I’d gone more than 30 days without even opening it, I realized that the idea that I needed one was actually legitimately outdated.
So I waited for the right moment… in my case, it was an afternoon of waiting, waiting, waiting for some file to open while something else was running and my physical memory usage was up over 90% and 10 minutes of staring at the dumb blue blinking LED Â that represents hard drive activity had passed without the light ever flickering (because it was on solid from activity)… annnnnnnnd, I’d had enough.
I took the plunge, ordered the parts, and began the long, drawn-out process of waiting 2 business days for shipping. (Sad, I know.)
What Do You Need?
Well first, you’ll need an SSD caddy that matches your machine. At first, I searched for one that was clearly advertised as made for my particular laptop (using the manufacturer name and model number of my laptop). That seemed like a good idea. Price? Around $45 from some unknown online vendor.
Hmmmm…. I wonder…. is this laptop really all that unique?
So, I did some more digging around and found SilverStone Technology. They seem to make a handful of these unusual gadgets, and in my research, the TS09 model seemed like a good fit for my laptop (even though no specific laptops were mentioned).
To make sure it would work, I located the proper method for removing my ODD (optical disk drive), just to do some quick measurements.
Gateway NV57H44u
For my Gateway NV57H44u, the optical drive (DVD writer, in this case) is held in place by a single screw which is located to the right of the Windows 7 COA label and Gateway info sticker.
I few twists with a screwdriver (while the machine was turned off, power supply disconnected and battery removed, of course), and the optical drive came free. I tugged on it to get it out, and checked it with a ruler. It was, in fact, a 12.7mm height drive. This is something of a “standard” size, although you’ll want to confirm with your manufacturer regarding the specs for your device (or just measure like I did).
Optical Drive: Slimline SATA connector
The next thing I wanted to verify was that the optical drive that shipped with my laptop was using a typical “slimline” SATA connector (shown in photo). This is how the device gets power and how it communicates with your system. It was, so the TS09 looked like it might be the right fit. At less than half the price ($20 from Amazon) of the other caddy I’d looked at, this was feeling more and more like the right way to go.
The next big question:Â which SSD to get?
Well, this is where I’d done my homework. After lots of research, I had decided on the Samsung 840 series. The problem you may run into is that there are at least 3 different types of drives bearing that moniker: the 840, the 840 EVO, and the 840 PRO.
Samsung 840 PRO Series 128GB SSD
These drives are significantly different. Sure, they all look nearly identical, and they all have “840” in the name. Frankly, they’re all fairly reputable as well.
The next decision I had to make was about capacity… which, frankly, is all about how much you want to spend. I’d already decided that since my SSD was a new, second hard drive (and I was keeping my original 500GB drive for storage), I could live with having only 128GB on it. This is plenty for me to install Windows 7 and a few core applications that I need to run speedily (Google Chrome, the Adobe Creative Suite apps like Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc.) and Microsoft Office. All my data would stay on the traditional hard drive that shipped with my laptop.
Now… you can find 128GB SSDs for less. I’m guessing that even the 840 EVO (120GB) or standard 840 would be decent choices. I was willing to spend a little more for the PRO because I just don’t like to gamble with hard drives. Any of them can (and do) fail, so there are certainly no guarantees, but I prefer to give myself the best chances right out of the gate. Also, the PRO model’s additional speed was important to me, since speed was the whole reason to take this project on to begin with.
So you need an SSD and a caddy. That’s it!
Well… at least that’s it for hardware.
Unboxing the 840 PRO was a breeze. It dropped into the TS09 caddy, no problem. The trickiest part was deciding which of the screws to use to cinch it down to the caddy, which shipped with a couple of different sets for you to use. You can’t goof this part up, though, since the screws either fit or they don’t.
Once the drive was secured to the caddy, it only remained to insert the caddy into the laptop. One detail that could easily be missed is that the retaining screw (remember the screw that I removed earlier to loosen the optical drive?) has to screw into something. On my optical drive, there was a small metal bracket which received the screw and held it in place. I removed that bracket from the optical drive (it’s obviously a separate piece) and attached it to the same spot on the caddy, which had a hole in just the right place for it.
Once inserted, I fired up the laptop to make sure that everything was working. I saw a very satisfying green and blue color emanating from the new SSD’s LEDs, which shone through the well-placed hole in the caddy.
OK, Everything’s Installed… Now What?
Well… this is where you have some options about how to proceed.
To get the maximum benefit out of your SSD, you’re going to want it to be your primary drive… meaning the one that Windows (or your O/S of choice) is installed on.
There are two major ways to make this happen: migration or clean install.
If you choose to migrate, you’ll essentially be moving your current Windows installation from your existing hard drive over to your SSD. There are a few advantages to this:
It’s easier (in theory, at least)… the 840 PRO series ships with migration software designed to make this happen for you. (Ironically, it ships on a CD. So, if you’re adding the SSD to your system instead of replacing your primary hard drive with it, you’ll need to plug your optical drive back in to use it.)
You keep your current Windows setup completely intact. This means you don’t need to re-install any software, locate drivers, find product keys, installation files, etc. You’ll also keep your all-too familiar configuration… simple things like desktop backgrounds, sound “themes” and even locations of files will (most likely) all stay exactly the same as before.
You may find that you’re up and running faster. Once you complete the migration, you reboot, and you’re in business. No need to install every Windows update since the beginning of time… and so on.
On the down side, migration:
keeps all the crud that’s built up over time in your Windows installation. Software that you install and subsequently uninstall leaves traces behind… clogging up your Windows registry and ultimately slowing things down. Admittedly, I’m a power user, so I’m more prone to this sort of thing, but it’s worth a consideration. If you have only installed a few pieces of software, this is a non-issue. But if you’re like me and you’ve forgotten about more software than you remember, then those small effects can really add up.
may not work! If you’re moving from a 500GB hard drive (that’s nearly full) to a 128GB hard drive, you can do the math. The important things that need to be moved are the boot partition and your O/S itself. However, if you had only one partition on your hard drive—which is how virtually every laptop ships from the manufacturer—and not separate partitions for your O/S and your data, then you’re going to have problems. The migration process may not adequately handle all the details that need to be handled, leaving you with a mess. On the other hand, if you are moving to an SSD with equivalent (or greater) capacity (or if you have a boot partition that’s equivalent or smaller than your new SSD), then you won’t have this consideration to worry about.
Besides migration, your other option is to perform a clean install of Windows. This means that you’ll be starting fresh… possibly even enjoying that OOBE (“out of box experience”) like you did on day 1 with your PC all over again.
Some of the advantages to a clean install are:
You’ll have a clean slate. Only software that you choose to install will be installed. Often, this single factor alone can produce enough of a speed boost that people will do it even without moving to a faster hard drive.
You can map out your new configuration as you see fit. Where will your “My Documents” folder be located? (i.e. Which drive will it live on?) Which programs do you want installed on the SSD (because you particularly need them to run faster) and which ones can stay on your legacy hard drive?
Keeping your SSD clutter-free. I personally don’t want to store data and other static files unnecessarily on the SSD. It’s intended to be lean, fast, and unencumbered. My older hard drive can shoulder the load for storage and so forth.
Disadvantages to a clean install include:
It can be a pain to do. Ever tried installing Windows 7 to a laptop without a Windows 7 installation CD/DVD? Even more fun… without a place to put the CD/DVD (since you yanked your DVD drive out to make room for your SSD)! A little extra effort (and perhaps some downright creativity) is required to pull this off.
You may be out of commission longer. Nothing will be installed on your laptop until you install it. This means you’ll start with the essentials (Windows, Chrome, and your most-used software), and then you may find yourself discovering another missing item weeks afterward.
Once you’re up and running, additional energy may be required to get everything back to where you like it.
For me, the decision between a migration and a clean install was a complete no-brainer: hands-down, I wanted a clean install. I was looking to squeeze every possible ounce of benefit (read: speed) out of this project. There’s no better way to pull that off than to start fresh with Windows. Being the extremist that I am (at times), I wanted to even be sure I avoided any of the bloatware that Gateway originally installed on my machine. So… I chose to not even bother trying to use the “recovery” partition. Instead, I went on the hunt for an official Microsoft image of Windows 7 to install.
Being a geek, I’ve performed many a clean install of Windows. Even so, it had been a while… so, I made a couple of blunders that cost me a little bit of time. Here are some notes so you can perhaps avoid running into any problems yourself.
Prepare your Windows installer ahead of time. Before you take the big plunge and render your existing setup inoperable, do yourself a favor and get everything ready. It’s a long story, but I ended up needing to use another computer to do this. Chances are, you don’t have a Windows CD or DVD to install from, since most manufacturers quit distributing them long ago. So, you’ll have to work around this dilemma, which means you’re going to need a 4GB or larger USB flash drive, and you’ll also need to…
Understand which version of Windows you have. If you bought your PC at retail, then you have the “OEM” version of Windows. That product key on the colorful COA sticker on the bottom of your laptop won’t work if you try to install the “retail” version of Windows. You also need to know if you’re using the 32-bit or 64-bit version. Once you figure out which one you have (mine worked out to be “Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium OEM”), you’ll need to download an .ISO file (DVD image) for that version. There are lots of places to look for these… some of them legitimate (read: legal) and some of them less so. To save time and energy, I located a version that included SP1 (“Service Pack 1”), which had a huge batch of the earliest Windows 7 updates rolled up into it already.
Create a bootable USB drive with your Windows installer on it. Once you’ve located and downloaded an appropriate .ISO file, you can use Microsoft’s official Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool (more info about this here) to push the Windows 7 installer to your USB flash drive. (Note: I had a little trouble with this tool… in fact, it never did completely finish without an error. But I finally realized that if the tool made it to 98% before the error occurred, then chances are it actually had finished. This turned out to be true.)
Before you get started installing, download all the drivers for your machine. Hit your laptop manufacturer’s website and locate the downloads for your model number. You’re going to need (at least): the chipset driver, video driver, audio driver, and network drivers for both LAN and wireless. You may also need to get drivers for your touchpad, webcam, card reader, bluetooth device and maybe some other peripherals in your system. That last batch can be downloaded from your new, fresh Windows install if necessary. But you’ll want the first batch in a folder on your USB stick so they’ll be handy when Windows comes up for the first time.
Block off some time and be ready to reboot quite a few times. The actual Windows 7 installation went pretty quickly for me… maybe even under an hour. Once you have your basic driver set installed, however, Windows 7 will start pulling down updates. They number into the hundreds… and that’s when you start from SP1! Some of your drivers will even require a reboot upon installation, which is a good idea.
Get your other software installation media ready to go as well. If you need to install other programs (such as Microsoft Office apps) from a CD, it’s a good idea to get those installers onto your USB stick ahead of time also. Many, many programs can be downloaded, so if you aren’t able to locate discs, it may not be the end of the world.
Once you’ve got your tools in place, then plug that USB stick in and go!
My laptop had no problem booting from the USB flash drive, and when the Windows 7 installer came up, it was pretty clear which drive I wanted to target for the installation. Be careful to select the right drive, though, as choosing the wrong option from the installer could end up wiping your existing hard drive. I plan to keep all the data on that drive (eventually I’ll delete the Windows folder, I guess), especially at first, so I made sure that Windows 7 got installed to my brand new SSD.
Once the Windows 7 installer reaches the point where it needs to reboot, you may want to take a look at your BIOS or “Boot Order” settings. My machine’s BIOS didn’t recognize the SSD as a hard drive in the boot sequence options, which led to a moment of panic. It did, however, still show the option of booting from the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive, which I realized pointed to the SATA channel that the SSD was connected to. So, I set the machine up to boot from that first (once I was finished with the USB flash drive portion of the process), and it worked like a charm.
As the installation process completes and a reboot is necessary, you may see an option to select from a couple of different Windows 7 installations at boot-up. The “top” option will be your new one. In my case, I can still boot to the previous Windows 7 install (from my legacy hard drive) using the 2nd option. This is nice for when you need to locate that one setting (piece of software, etc.) you forgot about. Later, you can remove the 2nd entry if you want to eliminate this step in the boot process.
The Results
I’ve now had a couple of days to enjoy using my machine since installing the SSD and getting a clean install of Windows 7 going. Wow, what a difference! I’m certainly seeing all the speed benefits I was hoping for. All the waiting from hard drive lag is gone. Reads and writes to the drive are  pretty much invisible to me now. The machine boots up in a fraction of the time that it used to take. Some of the more hard-drive heavy software tools I use regularly (Photoshop, etc.) are faster than I’ve ever seen them on my own hardware.
An unexpected benefit that I’m seeing is a reduction in both heat and noise. The machine is quieter than ever… partly because the 2nd hard drive (meaning my legacy hard drive, which is now exclusively for storage) doesn’t have the constant read/write activity that made it noisy and caused it to get hot. In turn, with less heat in the chassis, the fan is running a lot less often. Those two combine to make this the quietest laptop I’ve ever owned.
Regarding battery life, I had expected it might suffer with the two hard drives. However, the power consumption of my SSD is virtually nil when compared to the legacy hard drive. Since the SSD is my boot drive (and my Windows drive), the reads and writes to the legacy drive are cut by 90% or more. Thus, I’m expecting to see a nice bump in battery life. I haven’t done any actual measurement of this yet, so I lack the evidence to make this claim unequivocally, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this bears out after some real testing.
In short, this is the best ~$150 I’ve ever spent upgrading a laptop. There is truly no comparison between the “after” and the “before.” I highly recommend it.
Even factoring in all the time I’ve spent… whether checking prices and doing my pre-planning or actually installing the gear and/or Windows and the accompanying joys of getting everything back up and running, this is well worth the effort. My payoff in terms of speed, responsiveness, and overall usability are beyond my wildest expectations.
In short: if you’re suffering from a slow laptop, add an SSD via a caddy and get yourself a major speed boost!
AÂ recent piece in The Economist (which included the above graphic) got me thinking about just how Google pulled off such a massive global coup in the world of desktop web browsers.
After all, the choice of what web browser to use has long been a deeply personal one.
And when I say “long,” I’m going back to when we had to decide between the original Netscape (c. 1994) and AOL’s crappy browser (lovingly referred to as “Nyetscape”). Microsoft wasn’t a serious player in this fight—although they began rolling out Internet Explorer with Windows 95—until they forced it on the world with service packs and ultimately integrated it into Windows 98 (because it was necessary, of course!).
Let’s not forget that in those days Apple was in the toilet and a workable Linux operating system for home use—even geek home use—was many years away. So, for all intents and purposes, Microsoft completely controlled the operating systems of, well, all of us. Thus, they had a bit of an advantage when it came to providing the world’s default web browser.
And that’s exactly what Internet Explorer (“IE”) became… the world’s default web browser. Despite its security flaws, vulnerabilities and overall user experience, IE’s dominance was unshaken for many, many years.
We could discuss why this was true for so long, but at the end of the day, I believe it all comes down to “friction.”
Very simply, IE came bundled with Windows. Installing a new browser meant going out of your way to a different website, selecting the right download, finding the download on your computer and running it. Then… it meant changing your habits. Instead of looking for the little blue “E,” you had to find the icon for whatever new browser you installed… and then there was the matter of default websites, bookmarks/favorites, etc. For an average user, this represented a fair amount of pain (geeks did all of this a long time ago… more on that later), and was more than most would prefer to deal with.
Along Came Google
Ultimately, it was all the “friction” that Google solved. After all, they’re a default of their own… when it comes to search. By placing a simple little button on their famously stark and simple search page, they provided many with the opportunity to experience the web with a better browser.
Now don’t get me wrong… Google had to also build a great browser. And they did. Chrome was lightweight and elegant (and still is, for the most part).
But the more important factor was that it was easy.
Google built an installer that ran right inside IE and eliminated most of the steps required that might have represented some degree of pain for the average user. In fact, I would argue that a direct correlation could be drawn between the improvements made to that installation process and the spread of Google Chrome.
Global desktop web-browser market share, courtesy The Economist
And Google continues to innovate. Borrowing a page from the Mozilla playbook, they’ve created a marketplace for developers to contribute extensions that add features and functions to their browser, and they constantly look for ways to remove friction from processes—especially when they can carve a “path of least resistance” that leads to their own door.
Their latest innovation with Chrome involves streaming content from your browser to your television via WiFi. All it requires is the Google Chromecast, a simple device that connects to the HDMI port of your television and connects to your wireless network. The device is officially priced at only $35, but when it sold out in less than 2 days, it began selling for double and nearly triple that in no time.
In short, it’s the simplest and easiest way to enjoy internet-based content on your TV. Picture yourself sitting on the couch or laying in bed… you stumble across an interesting YouTube video on your smartphone, but you don’t want to be forced to watch it on that small screen… simply press a button and “Presto!” — it’s playing on your TV instead.
And the Chromecast isn’t limited to YouTube. All sorts of content can be sent to your TV. I believe it’s truly a game-changer… and it continues the tradition of eliminating friction.
 What Does Your Choice of Browser Say About You?
As a quick sidebar, most of the geeks of the world jumped off the IE train just as soon as Firefox became a real alternative (for me, that was about 10 years ago). Firefox was much safer, and Mozilla had grown a community that fostered innovation (remember when “tabbed browsing” was new?). Overall, it was much less painful.
Other browsers began to pop up… Apple gained decent market share in the desktop and laptop space, increasing the presence of its Safari browser. More and more people realized just how bad IE really was… and somewhere along the line, your choice of web browser began to really say something about you.
At one point, someone famously published a study that suggested IE users had lower IQs than users of other browsers. The study was a complete hoax, and the originators of this delicious piece of fun managed to prank a number of reputable outlets, including the BBC, much to the delight of geeks everywhere.
Where web browsing will go in the future is anybody’s guess. For now, Chrome is the browser of choice for geeks and non-geeks alike. And we appear to be one step closer to Google’s takeover of the known world. Resistance, apparently, is futile.
