Do you Chrome?

I have been hooked on this latest browser by Google. As usual they have come up with a catchy name – Chrome. I’ve see so many wonderful things written about it on the internet. They have covered it’s latest features so comprehensively and I don’t intend to describe them here.

But the nice thing about it is that once in a while I discover another not-quite-obvious nevertheless useful functionality. It is like finding pieces of cashew in your wattalappam – makes the experience that much richer.

For example, You can press Control-F and bring up a search box to search for contents on the current webpage you are on – ok, so no big deal; but then as you type your search text on that search box, the browser dynamically highlights matching words on the current webpage – good, but give me more you say? Now look at your scroll bar on the right hand side of your browser… see those orange colour small horizontal lines? They show you matches on the other areas of the webpage you cannot currently see on your browser – neat eh?

I’ll give you another. Have you noticed a small animation (a spinning circle) next to the text “New Tab” when you type in a URL and press ‘Enter’? Well, that gives you an indication that the page is being displayed… if you look at it closely, you will find that initially it will start spinning on an anti-clockwise direction, and the moment it finds the website and starts to download contents, it starts spinning on a clockwise direction. Talk about attention to detail!

I hardly use any other browser now. Cheers Google!

Boys will be boys.

89 batch AGM for year 2008 was held at school in September. We were all thrilled at the turnout. Some say it was the magic of digital age, namely SMS and Email that raked them all in. Whatever it was, it certainly helped in the selection of the new committee. Once the formalities were over, we all headed towards the nearest ‘waterhole’ which happened to belong to one of our batchmates – in front of a Castle of a hospital.

It started well, with plenty of food and drinks around and smokers and non-smokers ending up in the same air conditioned hall. We couldn’t ask for more. The biggest mistake was trying to get a democratic vote from a very diverse set of individuals who by now had so much alcohol in their blood, that if any of them started bleeding from any open wound – the blood would have evaporated. All the more reason to avoid confrontation.

But it was exactly where we were heading. The subject was the batch trip – the contention was whether it was boys-only or family-friendly. There were harsh words spoken as well as stand up speeches from each participant going around… and again around the table, but no agreement in sight. Some of us sat back and enjoyed the spectacle. It was nostalgic in the sense that this is exactly what we used to do in our school days (minus the alcohol of course).

The trip is on. But to this day, I don’t think we were able to find a resolution to the argument. Should be an interesting trip – wouldn’t miss it for the world!