Suspending Browser Tabs for Memory Conservation

Update: As of February 2021, The Great Suspender is no longer available due to the releases being overtaken by a malacious owner.  Modern Chrome versions are said to have better memory management anyway, so you may find a separate extension unnecessary. If you’re like me and have upwards to 30-50 browser tabs open at the same time, you may notice that your computer becomes sluggish.  In my case this was because all the tabs still consume memory even though I might not need them for some period of time.  I still like to keep some tabs that I might need Continue Reading

Google Chrome

Google is releasing a beta of its browser application, Google Chrome, finally.  The scheduled release date is tomorrow (Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008). Google Chrome uses the WebKit rendering engine, which is currently being used in Apple’s Safari browser among others.  I personally prefer Safari’s speed at loading pages, and I hope Google Chrome using the same engine can achieve same or better speeds than Firefox or Internet Explorer. Also it seems like each tab in Google Chrome will be run in its own process, which should make memory leaks easier to manage (well hopefully there won’t be any to start Continue Reading

Google Calendar and Google Earth

Another beautiful [beta] Web 2.0 application brought to you by Google. Multiple views, multiple calendars, sharing calendars, super-cool interface (even cooler than Gmail). Of course it doesn’t match with the flying abilities of Google Earth, but it does set the standard for calendar applications on the browser. Go to Google Calendar. Oh I might as well mention, you can configure Google Earth to be a flight-simulator type program, and fly around anywhere in the world. You really get the feeling that you’re really in the cockpit if you try flying low in 3D-ized areas (such as the North Shore Mountains Continue Reading

Writely – The Web Word Processor

While I was reading some stuff on the internet about Web 2.0, I came across Writely – The Web Word Processor. “Simple & secure document collaboration and publishing.” This is no ordinary word processor. It’s not even a downloadable program. Writely is an online word processor that you can access from anywhere through any compatible web browser (IE 5.5+, Firefox 1.0.6+, Mozilla 1.4+) that has cookies and Javascript enabled. Although it is run on the web browser, the editor is WYSIWYG and can support the most common formatting (bold, italics, underline, lists, tables) and even includes a spell check. You Continue Reading