This is a question posed by Jack Wallen, not a direct quote, in an article published to Linux.com: Which Linux web browser(s) do you use on a regular basis?
Here's mine:
Firefox, my go to web browser, www.mozilla.com; Chrome for when I want to watch a program on Netflix, www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html; Slimjet, based on Chromium, but doesn't track your activity the way Chrome does, www.slimjet.com; and Palemoon, a browser based on Firefox's rendering engine, and claims it's easier to use and more efficient, www.palemoon.org.
Firefox has been my browser of choice for a number of years superseding Opera. It's always been stable on my PCs even through "the bloat days." I use it everyday.
When Google came out with an HTML5 player for Chrome, I installed the browser for the purpose of watching Netflix. I use it rarely to surf the net as its not as stable as Firefox, locking up my PC tight as a drum.
Slimjet I installed as a recommendation from PCLinuxOS magazine. I'm fairly impressed by its speed and stability - more stable than Chrome.
Palemoon I also installed on a recommendation from PCLOS Magazine. I've found to be at least equivalent to Firefox upon which Palemoon is based. The default home page lets one easily access almost all the most popular websites. Many of Firefox' extensions and themes are compatible with this browser, plus it has a number of its own. A nice browser for those that want an improved Firefox-like experience. Palemoon does seem to load, and render faster.
Lastly, I've installed one other browser called Slimboat, www.slimboat.com. It's OK, but nothing to write home about.
I'm sure you, dear reader, have at least tried out both Chrome and Firefox, and have chosen one or the other as your browser of choice. Give the other three a try and see what you think. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Friday, May 15, 2009
My Tech Background
As someone who's been involved in the tech industries in some way, or another for over thirty years, I've come to not only value lifelong learning, but respect the rapidity in which technology progresses. Keeping up is not easy. I started my tech experience in sixth grade (circa 1969) when I received a Radio Shack electronics lab as a Christmas gift. Building my first crystal radio (you old-timers remember those?) and doing the other experiments triggered my interest in electronics -- particularly radio. In high school, I joined the Audio-Visual club delivering and working on Reel to Reel film projectors and Video Tape Recorders, plus reel to reel and cassette audio tape recorders. We also built an in-house radio station using the school's PA system. All pretty neat stuff back then working on vacuum tube and discreet component, solid-state amplifiers; and toying around with the video equipment as well. That was in the era where monaural audio and Black & White video were dominant technologies for schools. I took the only electronics shop class available. We had one teletype terminal connected to a DEC main-frame at Iowa State University in our "computer lab." Sharing time "online" was always an issue in our Computer Science fundamentals class (programming in BASIC).
That experience in high school was back in 1973-76. Right after graduating, I enlisted in the Navy as an Electronics Technician. After graduating Boot Camp, I started my tech training in the ET 'A' school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center about an hour's drive north of Chicago. There I really learned the fundamentals of radio-electronics technology. After graduating ET 'A-1', I enlisted as a four-year recruit, so I didn't get to attend the more advanced curriculum, I was sent to sea-duty on board a frigate stationed in Japan. There I was assigned to maintain the ship's UHF communications systems. UHF frequencies and vacuum tubes are a poor mix. No stability for any length of time due vacuum tubes' inherent tendencies to change critical values over time. With a short wave length, things that become critical values multiply with electronic devices. I stayed on board the ship for a better part of three years, then I re-enlisted for another four.
I was sent back to ET 'A-2' school to attend the advanced curricula -- RADAR and digital circuit fundamentals, plus systems troubleshooting. After graduating, I was sent to the Naval Training Center in Vallejo, CA, an hour north of San Francisco, for training in repairing cryptographic systems. There I learned how digital technology worked to produce scrambled text in a predictable, thus decodable format without using microprocessors. I learned binary math and 'Baudot' code, the basis of today's byte encoding. It was 1980 and the first PCs were just coming out -- the TRS-80, Atari 400/800, Commodore VIC and others. I remember playing AD&D with the DM using his TRS-80 Model III to aid his efforts. After I graduated those classes, I was posted to shore duty in Portugal (fun, fun!) from 1981 through the beginning of 1984 at a NATO communications station near Lisbon. I didn't want to go back to sea duty, so I got out in April of 1984.
After getting back to Ames, Iowa, I enrolled at Iowa State under their Computer Engineering program. I completed about two years and decided I got in over my head especially with the math. I remained unemployed for about fifteen months and was hired by an overseas Dept. of Defense contractor to work at a US Air Force communications site near Ankara, Turkey. I maintained the broadband microwave system there along with the HF, Satellite and on-base telephone systems. An interesting experience as I learned multiplexing, microwave, satellite and telephone switching technologies. I was there from Sept. 1987 to Feb. 1991 right after the first Gulf War. It was there I bought my first IBM clone after years of using my Atari 8-bit computers -- a Zenith 386 with 2Mb memory and a 20Mb hard drive (a high end configuration for the time). I learned MS-DOS and used Quarterdeck Software's QEMM as my memory manager, and Desqview as my "GUI." Windows 2.x didn't offer what Desqview did. It was a fun system to learn on, but the hardware configuration of using a "processor board" connected to a back-plane board was not very common, so upgrading was difficult to say the least. I ended up selling my system to an airman stationed there.
Back to Ames and looking for a job again. After about two months, I was hired by a local Motorola dealership as the technician for their Ames store. During my eleven years working for them, I became familiar with most of the various configurations and environments commercial two-way radios were subject. During that time I bought two Gateway systems -- a 486 running DOS 5.5 and Windows 3.1 (8Mb RAM and 680Mb HD), then, two years later, a Pentium MMX 166 (32Mb RAM and 6Gb HD) running Win95. Before I was laid off during the recession of 2002, I replaced the Pentium MMX with a Dell Pentium 4 running WinXP (512Mb RAM, 80Gb HD). That fall, I enrolled at Des Moines Community College in Ankeny, Iowa under their Information Technology-Network Administrator program. While attending classes at DMACC, I attained my A+ certification and learned the basics of MS Windows administration including administering domains and MS SQL Server 2000. Plus I took a couple of Linux classes featuring Red Hat and Mandrake Linux. I also learned the fundamentals of C++ programming, and Novell Netware administration. I graduated as a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society (the two-year college equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa).
About four months passed and I was hired by Pitney Bowes to service console mail inserters. Machines that stuff envelopes with billing statements and adverts at a high rate of speed. These machines employ an interesting combination of mechanical, pneumatic, electronic and computer technologies to perform their function. I worked for them for about 37 months before I was laid off again. This time, I was part of the vanguard preceding the mass lay-offs happening today.
There you have it, my resume in biographical format, so as I write about technical issues, I feel I come with some credentials to do just that. Until my next posting, TTFN.
That experience in high school was back in 1973-76. Right after graduating, I enlisted in the Navy as an Electronics Technician. After graduating Boot Camp, I started my tech training in the ET 'A' school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center about an hour's drive north of Chicago. There I really learned the fundamentals of radio-electronics technology. After graduating ET 'A-1', I enlisted as a four-year recruit, so I didn't get to attend the more advanced curriculum, I was sent to sea-duty on board a frigate stationed in Japan. There I was assigned to maintain the ship's UHF communications systems. UHF frequencies and vacuum tubes are a poor mix. No stability for any length of time due vacuum tubes' inherent tendencies to change critical values over time. With a short wave length, things that become critical values multiply with electronic devices. I stayed on board the ship for a better part of three years, then I re-enlisted for another four.
I was sent back to ET 'A-2' school to attend the advanced curricula -- RADAR and digital circuit fundamentals, plus systems troubleshooting. After graduating, I was sent to the Naval Training Center in Vallejo, CA, an hour north of San Francisco, for training in repairing cryptographic systems. There I learned how digital technology worked to produce scrambled text in a predictable, thus decodable format without using microprocessors. I learned binary math and 'Baudot' code, the basis of today's byte encoding. It was 1980 and the first PCs were just coming out -- the TRS-80, Atari 400/800, Commodore VIC and others. I remember playing AD&D with the DM using his TRS-80 Model III to aid his efforts. After I graduated those classes, I was posted to shore duty in Portugal (fun, fun!) from 1981 through the beginning of 1984 at a NATO communications station near Lisbon. I didn't want to go back to sea duty, so I got out in April of 1984.
After getting back to Ames, Iowa, I enrolled at Iowa State under their Computer Engineering program. I completed about two years and decided I got in over my head especially with the math. I remained unemployed for about fifteen months and was hired by an overseas Dept. of Defense contractor to work at a US Air Force communications site near Ankara, Turkey. I maintained the broadband microwave system there along with the HF, Satellite and on-base telephone systems. An interesting experience as I learned multiplexing, microwave, satellite and telephone switching technologies. I was there from Sept. 1987 to Feb. 1991 right after the first Gulf War. It was there I bought my first IBM clone after years of using my Atari 8-bit computers -- a Zenith 386 with 2Mb memory and a 20Mb hard drive (a high end configuration for the time). I learned MS-DOS and used Quarterdeck Software's QEMM as my memory manager, and Desqview as my "GUI." Windows 2.x didn't offer what Desqview did. It was a fun system to learn on, but the hardware configuration of using a "processor board" connected to a back-plane board was not very common, so upgrading was difficult to say the least. I ended up selling my system to an airman stationed there.
Back to Ames and looking for a job again. After about two months, I was hired by a local Motorola dealership as the technician for their Ames store. During my eleven years working for them, I became familiar with most of the various configurations and environments commercial two-way radios were subject. During that time I bought two Gateway systems -- a 486 running DOS 5.5 and Windows 3.1 (8Mb RAM and 680Mb HD), then, two years later, a Pentium MMX 166 (32Mb RAM and 6Gb HD) running Win95. Before I was laid off during the recession of 2002, I replaced the Pentium MMX with a Dell Pentium 4 running WinXP (512Mb RAM, 80Gb HD). That fall, I enrolled at Des Moines Community College in Ankeny, Iowa under their Information Technology-Network Administrator program. While attending classes at DMACC, I attained my A+ certification and learned the basics of MS Windows administration including administering domains and MS SQL Server 2000. Plus I took a couple of Linux classes featuring Red Hat and Mandrake Linux. I also learned the fundamentals of C++ programming, and Novell Netware administration. I graduated as a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society (the two-year college equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa).
About four months passed and I was hired by Pitney Bowes to service console mail inserters. Machines that stuff envelopes with billing statements and adverts at a high rate of speed. These machines employ an interesting combination of mechanical, pneumatic, electronic and computer technologies to perform their function. I worked for them for about 37 months before I was laid off again. This time, I was part of the vanguard preceding the mass lay-offs happening today.
There you have it, my resume in biographical format, so as I write about technical issues, I feel I come with some credentials to do just that. Until my next posting, TTFN.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
