Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Head in the Clouds... (or not)

This was intentional, right?  This doesn't happen by accident, and yet...

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
(note definition 3 from Merriam-Webster)

It doesn't really give the impression that their Cloud Computing has much substance (whether it does or not is an entirely different question, this is just another post about strange branding).

Friday, April 15, 2011

Favorite Chrome extensions

For Chrome/Chromium users, here are my favorite extensions.  What are yours?

Privacy/security related
  • AdBlock -- probably the most important one here.  I can't stand browsing without it.
  • Disconnect -- blocks tracking web page elements from major providers (Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.)
  • Explode -- expands most URLs created by URL rewriters (e.g. TinyURL)
  • KB SSL Enforcer -- This one actually causes a bit of trouble, so you may not actually want to use it. It tries to ensure that you're talking to websites over encrypted channels by detecting whether there's an SSL version of each site.  Even though it has systems to override its decisions, it still ends up screwing up a fair amount of the time (especially with online banking) since many sites don't actually mirror their SSL sites correctly.
  • Keep My Opt-Outs -- opts out of personalized Google ads
Web site integration
Browser functionality