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Can I make 5,000 songs? + BUTCHER
Posted by lemiffe in My Music on May 3rd, 2011 | 0 commentsSo I’ve been doing some music lately (aside from taking my final exams, writing my MSc dissertation, working a lot, and going for walks around the beach now that the weather is warm), and some interesting music has been produced.
I’ve also set myself the goal of making 5,000 songs/videos for my youtube channel in my life. Hopefully it will be achievable. Check out my song “Butcher” below:
FF4 vs IE9 vs Chrome10
Posted by lemiffe in Computers, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Mozilla, Operating Systems, Windows on Mar 27th, 2011 | 3 comments
Before you go all “Oh no! Not another review on the latest browsers!” on me, I state that I have been on the net and looked at reviews and comparisons of the latest browsers, and I am somewhat dissatisfied.
There are quite a few comparisons of IE9 vs FF and Chrome, but most of them seem to be from October 2010, using an RC instead of the final release, including Opera, or excluding one of these three browsers I’m reviewing.
Let me state the purpose of this post bluntly: This is not a review, nor am I meddling with V8 or Acid3 tests, we all know you can use Google to find the results straight away. I want to give my personal perspective on how well the browsers perform in real-life tasks.
After using all three browsers for about a week and a half, each one with all my regular tabs open (7 permanent, 1-7 additional), this is what I have found thus far:
Chrome 10: Fast as always, speedy start-up, no crashes in the time period (except for Flash plugin, twice). Chrome supposedly integrated GPU acceleration since build 7, so I ran the IE Fish Tank test made by Microsoft, and it reports approx. 20FPS, which is low, however, the animation looked OK to me anyway. RAM used was quite high, but performance did not drop even when I had about 14-15 tabs open (including Youtube, Grooveshark, Gmail, Docs, Hootsuite, amongst other heavy web applications). My rating: 9/10 for day-to-day use, 6/10 for animation-loaded sites.
Firefox 4: Sleek new interface, speedy when few tabs are loaded, sluggish when using over 10 tabs (specially in Google Calendar), no crashes in time period, GPU integration seems good, Fishtank’s average FPS was just below the maximum (over 50FPS) which means Firefox has done a great job integrating GPU acceleration into the browser. RAM was lower than Chrome, but performance did drop when I opened many tabs. My rating: 7/10 for day-to-day use, 9/10 for animation-loaded sites.
Internet Explorer 9: Installation time for Windows 7 64-bit version was longer than it’s counterparts (approx. 7+ minutes including necessary updates) and it asked me for a bloody Windows restart (typical of Microsoft). The browser that claims “fast is now beautiful” is actually quite fast to start up, but I’d leave “beautiful” as a perspective issue, though I must say it looks much better than IE6, 7 and 8 combined. Opening tabs is much faster than it’s predecesors. I don’t like the fact you can’t “pin” tabs like you can in FF and Chrome. GPU acceleration has given this browser a big boost in overall speed. When you open a new tab it displays useful data, similar to Chrome, which Firefox does not display. Google Calendar runs faster than in Firefox, but a bit slower than in Chrome. The overall speed remains good even with 10+ tabs open. I don’t like the feature it has of opening tabs next to the address bar by default, though that can be changed, obviously. I prefer the all-in-one bar to the dual-bar in Firefox. RAM usage was significantly lower than in Firefox, by about 40%. I didn’t like the fact that it didn’t ask me which search engine it should use by default. Fishtank’s FPS were even higher than in Firefox. My rating: 8/10 for day-to-day use, 10/10 for animation-loaded sites.
As a brief summary, my ratings are as follows: Chrome > IE9 > Firefox 4 > Firefox 3 > Firefox 2 > Firefox 1 > All other versions of IE
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Microsoft ahead of the game with IE9?
Posted by lemiffe in Companies, Computers, Internet, Microsoft, Technology on Mar 15th, 2011 | 0 commentsBrowser wars are back!
Microsoft has just released IE9. Now, we were aware of a new look, impressive speed, and other impressive aspects of this revamped model of IE9 for quite a while now… But is this a game changer?
Check out the promotional video below:
I’ve not had a chance to give it a go yet. I am an avid fan of Google Chrome, it just never fails me. Before this I used to be a Firefox supporter. I left Firefox because it just seemed to drag the system’s performance down. I’ve not used Internet Explorer for years now, as I experience no problems on any page with Chrome.
However, I’m curious to the impact Internet Explorer 9 will have in the worldwide browser usage. Hopefully it will get more users off IE6 for good.
What are your thoughts on IE9? Have you tried it out? Would you be willing to try it out? What do you expect of it?
My latest music
Posted by lemiffe in lemiffe, Music, My Music on Feb 26th, 2011 | 0 commentsI’ve been taking a break from blogging these past few months. But not from music 
Check out my latest videos…
Hora de Ir: A song in DADGAD tuning.
The answer to this time: An improvisation in DADGAD tuning.
To reach out: A “more proper” song, also in DADGAD tuning… man, I’m loving that tuning.
Back in Time
Posted by lemiffe in Life, Science, Space on Dec 29th, 2010 | 0 commentsSo, if the light from distant galaxies we perceive through telescopes is a snapshot of how it was thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years old; If there is another civilisation out there, would they not perceive us, maybe millions of light years away, as an inhabitable planet where only molten lava, terrifying electric storms, and excessive heat predominate?
That is the question I pose. Maybe we have discarded many celestial bodies as inhabitable when indeed they may, today, be life supporting entities. What say thee?
