Sometimes I make games. Sometimes I make websites. This is my blog.
I’m very happy to announce that the wait is now over and DodgeBots has officially launched :)
You can play now, for free, compete in tournaments, or pay-to-play and win actual cash and prizes at https://willpwn4food.com.
This is a huge milestone for me professionally as I’m now able to say “Yes, I’ve been part of a team that has released a game for sale to the public.” It’s also a huge win for me personally: a game developer is something I’ve always wanted to become and now I’m officially here.
There are a couple of cloud tools that I use to make my life easier and to increase my productivity. I’ve written before about using Dropbox to help share and sync your files with the cloud, but today I’d like to share another tip/tool that I use daily: Browser Sync.
As a web developer I’ve usually got several browsers open including Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Thankfully, both of these browsers offer a neat option called Sync that lets you share your bookmarks (and other preferences) with yourself, on any computer.
This is handy because during the day any number of bookmark-able links come up but I haven’t got time to look at them. Or I may find a link that I need to save and install software from on another machine.
Using Firefox Sync and Google Chrome Sync, any bookmark I save will show up on any PC/Linux/Mac computer I use. No more E-Mailing myself links, no more USB keys, no more losing my bookmarks due to viruses or re-installing Windows.
But it’s not just bookmarks that can be shared securely. With Google Chrome sync you can sync your passwords, preferences, and extensions. That means if you buy a new laptop, the minute you sign into Google Chrome Sync, all your data and extensions are ready to roll. No installing required.
This is really powerful stuff and it’s exactly why the Internet and the cloud are changing the way we work and live. I’d like to hear how you use Browser Sync in your work/life in the comments below if you’d like to share.
The world’s fastest web browser, Google Chrome, has recently been released on the Linux platform. This is big news since it will greatly improve the web browsing performance of many of the world’s netbooks.
I’ve been a huge fan of Google Chrome since it appeared in the summer of last year, but haven’t used it heavily simply because of the lack of Linux support. It is installed on my Windows 7 virtualization, however.
Word on the street is that Google Chrome is also available for Macs, so if that’s your platform, take a look!
One thing that I think is important to note that I haven’t seen anyone pick up on is this line on the Official Google Blog post about Chrome being available for Linux and Mac:
“At Google, most engineers use Linux machines …”
Hmm.. No wonder they’re winning! ;)
Go for it -> Download Google Chrome for Linux
I downloaded Firefox 3 today. Just like a gazillion other people. It’s launch day and Mozilla wants to enter the record-books for number of downloads for a software product in one day. Supposedly there is no previous record so basically once the first download finished they were the winners :) Anyway, it was good to drum up some interest in alternative browsers!
The first thing I noticed was how responsive everything was. I’m a web developer — I get used to how long it takes for menus to load and things to happen after I click. I started using Firefox 3 and I have to say they have really raised the bar for browser speed. It used to be that only Opera was this fast. Great work!
Secondly, the “Awesome Bar“: I love it. Looks great, works great. It’s similar to Google Desktop’s search field in that you just type a few keywords of what you’re looking for and it’ll show you any sites that you’ve been to that match those keywords. Handy. We are definitely moving away from people actually knowing the domain your business is at. We know we’ve reached the turning point when browsers stop including an address bar entirely or when businesses owners don’t even know their own domain names :)
Finally, a new feature has been added on my Bookmark Toolbar that contains the top 10 most visited websites. This could be good or bad depending on your browsing habits ;). For me it’s really handy. Gmail is in there, Dzone, Digg, Synnema. Awesome.
I have to say I’m really impressed. The difference between Firefox 1 and 2 really didn’t hit me much but the difference between 2 and 3 is monumental. You really have to use it yourself to feel the difference in speed.
If you’re reading this post on June 17th, 2008, then head over to Firefox.com and help raise the number of downloads today by 1!