Tergiversations of a Traveling Mind

I have a tendency to have my phone die on me because I forgot to charge it properly. So I set up a bi-weekly reminder on my Google calendar to notify me by email when I need to do the task.

Google calender generally tries to be helpful: when I enter certain phrases like 7p-8p it automatically converts that to a 7:00pm-8:00pm timeslot on my calendar, and it tries to auto-detect the location when I use certain prepositions like "at" (e.g., "Gaming at Joe's house" or "Breakfast at Cthulhu's"). Today I noticed a rather amusing biproduct of this helpfulness. Here's my calendar entry:

Plug in phone

When	Fri Oct 29 8am – 8:30am Eastern Time
Where	phone (map)
Calendar	Tasks

It makes me feel like I'm a mob boss with someone I apparently need to handle appropriately this morning. :D

Google is really cool, but...

They keep coming out with these interesting things -- nifty web browsers and desktop applications. Matt Arnold usually sells them with his normal enthusiastic demeanour, often emailing them to me at my request when I become equally as intrigued.

The problem is, I never get to enjoy the Google bleeding edge. Heck, I never get to enjoy the production release. This is because I use Linux.

I was thrilled when Matt told me Google Desktop had *finally* been released for Linux. And about a month ago I was ecstatic when he told me Chrome had also been released, because while I've been lukewarm after trying the Windows version of Google Desktop, I really liked Chrome. Sure, the Beta was a year and a half after Windows users got a public release, but I'm used to that.

But sadly today I've been disappointed once again. A few of the features in Chrome that I was really looking forward to -- especially the ability to synchronise browsers so I don't have to leave all my bookmarks and settings behind when I switch operating systems -- is completely absent from Linux. All in all, Chrome for Linux just can't compete with the features I have in Firefox, both natively and with plugins.

Now, I know that us Penguin-heads are a small bunch. I know we are by no means representative of Google's market audience. But please, Google, there are a lot of geeks out there who really like your stuff and *want* you to be the big innovative paradise that we worship and adore, our one-stop shop for Internet and even desktop application bliss. And I kind of want to be one of those people...except I can't.

Mozilla is really good with getting its software up to date for non-Windows platforms -- and not just the browser, but its email and calendar client. And Bespin is downright cool. Even Opera has done a better job than Chrome has and getting its browser to the alternative operating systems. I do appreciate that Google at least packaged the browser as a .deb file and that I didn't have to compile from source, but still...

Sorry, Google. I'll try you again in a couple of years. It would be nice if in that time period you could cut the gap between your Windows and your Linux releases to, say, 6-9 months -- please don't disappoint your Penguin fans.

And don't worry, Google Chrome. I still think you're cool...for a Windows application. ;P