Ok, as one of my dear readers pointed out, I have been lax in getting a post with photos out about our trip to Italy. As you may, or may not, know, Gina and myself were in Italy for two weeks at the beginning of August. We had a great time, especially getting to see Gina’s parents and two brothers at the family house in Liguria.
The main reason for the trip though was to scout places that we would conceivably want to live when we move to Europe in the future. We spent the first whole week blasting around up north trying to do way too many things and talk to way too many people in a language in which we can only barely communicate. Great fun.
The quick run-down of where and what.
Flew into Milan, drove north to Colico (next to Lake Como).
Checked out Sondrio (too big), Morbegno (too big), Chiavenna (just right) as possible towns to relocate to.
Hiked in Val di Mello, Val di Codera, Madesimo (ski area above Chiavenna).
Swam twice per day in Lake Como and Lake Mezzola, very nice but cold.
Checked out many physio clinics, hospitals, social services, town facilities, bike shops and climbing shops.
Drove to Zucchello (Gina’s parents place).
Went swimming in the sea at San Fruttuoso (requires a hike in, only accessible by foot or boat).
So in the end, we were really tired, and had only somewhat figured out what we wanted to do. Isn’t that always the way. Enough words, lets see photos.
Our bags, yes this is it. We carried on everything because of out 3 flights. These contained sleeping bags, a tent and cooking stuff.
The view from our campsite in Colico, that is Lake Como and those are the alps.
Val di Mello, many compare it to Yosemite. There is lots of granite and lots boulders, thankfully there are no cars.
Looking back at Lago di Mezzola and Lago di Como from Val di Codera.
The main piazza in Chiavenna.
Madesimo, Ski area above Chiavenna.
At Zucchello and put straight to work!
San Fruttuoso from the hike in.
So that is the basics. If you want to see more photos definitely go and check out the gallery on my website. Just a note, the gallery is a little hidden so you can only get to it by the link, not by surfing around and looking for it.
I’ve been using Google Chrome for a few days now and I must say, I love it. First and foremost, it is faster than anything I’ve ever used. It is also better laid out, easier to use and the whole process containment for each tab is fantastic - no browser crashes yet, even when certain tabs have crashed. But the more I use it, the more little details I find. The little details that really show that time and thought went into developing Chrome.
Take this one for example:
When you first load up a page, the space to the left of the page title in the tab shows a little animation of a spinning line. At first the line moves counter-clockwise and is colored gray.
After a second the line changes color and direction, to blue and clockwise.
Intrigued, I paid a little more attention and, I’ll be damned. The line is gray and counter-clockwise while the browser is waiting on the server to respond to the initial request, then changes to blue and clockwise while loading the actual content.
Nice touch. Not only that, it functions as a subtle visual indicator of what is going on behind the scenes without being in your face. If you look close you will also see a small dialogue box in the lower left corner that gives you the same info, but the text is so unobtrusive that I didn’t even notice it until I started looking.
Hats off to Google. Nice browser; now, please, just get us a Mac version.
Uhh, yeah Google now has a browser. It’s based on Webkit (the engine behind Safari) and it is blindingly fast. I guess running each tab in its own process did work pretty well. Nice one Google.
Those of you long-time readers (sorry, I can’t help but poke fun at myself) will remember an image I posted from IE8 beta 1. The image, of Google Maps, showed that even in standards compliant mode the beta 1 release left much to be desired.
Well, 8 beta 2 came out today, and lo and behold, Google Maps works, it passes the Acid 2 test and even does a pretty good job of rendering most CSS 2 standards. I would like to almost say good job to the boys at the big MS. IE might finally catch up to the first release or two of Firefox 2. Seriously though, they are coming along and I’m glad that the IE boys and girls are doing their best to bring IE up to par.
For a full browser comparison check out QuirksMode.
I find it hard to fill you in, I must admit. Perhaps it is because I, as a human being, feel that my words are useless if there is not someone there to listen. Perhaps it is because you, as a faceless form field, do not have any qualities that I can identify with. You lack a face, you lack a name, you lack even the basic mechanism of response to action. You can only submit your contents into the void upon completion. Let’s face it, that’s not much; even HAL was blessed with a persona, however cold.
Maybe one day there will be a better you, perhaps one day you will evolve. You may even be given a name someday, by someone that cares for you, someone that loves you. But until that day, faceless form field, I will continue to be listless in the face of your lack thereof. And I will continue to pray to your creator that you be blessed with a face, perhaps even a name.
I’m back a full week now. And I promise I am going to write a proper post about the trip, but the details are still settling in my mind — so all 4 of you that read this will just have to wait a little longer.
ArsTechnica author Peter Bright, has penned a beauty. What Microsoft could learn from Apple, is a lengthy, well thought out and pride inducing piece on the history, design decisions and development opportunities of both the MS Windows OS and the Apple Mac OSX platforms. The first three parts can be found at these three links and there, apparently, is a fourth part in the works.
While a lot of the in-depth OS structures and conventions flew a little over my head, I did immensely enjoy the parts discussing the GUI’s of each system. Basic gist, Apple eats it’s own dog food. Another way of saying that not only did they develop a core set of values and design decisions, they practice what they preach by applying those decisions across the board to their own projects. This gives a clear message to programmers of third party apps that they should follow Apples lead. And in the end, you know what? It leads to a nicer looking and more usable OS for all users!
Well done with the words good sir. Keep up the good work.
