Archives for October, 2006
New Browser of Choice
For those who haven’t heard (like me up until the other day), there’s an unofficial branch of the Firefox 2.0 build known as “BonEcho” — which is compiled specifically for G4, G5 and Intel machines.
I’ve used Firefox off and on. While I like it, I find it to be a bit sluggish on the Mac. Because of that, I always seemed to wind up back using Safari. That is, until this time. Once I launched BonEcho, I was blown away at the speed increase over the official Firefox branch. It quickly became my browser of choice since all the same cool Firefox extensions and themes which work under 2.0 work with it too, especially Chris Pederick’s awesome Web Developer extension (I’d die if you took that one away from me).
So, if you’ve not given BonEcho a spin, and you’re a fan of freeware like I am, go download a copy specific for your machine processor from BeatnikPad.com. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Scheduled to Speak at SBAMUG
Just a quick note to share that I’ve been scheduled to speak at the November 29th meeting of the South Bay Apple Mac User Group (SBAMUG). I’ll be doing my ever popular schtick on “Be Your Own Help Desk” — so if you’re a South Bay local, and you want to come heckle (or support) me, you’re invited to attend.
More info as the date approaches…
Prolly is Not a Word, You Moron!
I’ve come across this “word” one too many times on the Internet today, and I’m flabbergasted that its use is becoming such commonplace. The word being “prolly” — which has to be a shortened Internet slang for probably — no doubt derived from some kind of MTV influenced Ebonics dialect.
While I take issue at the use of idiotic slang as a whole (I guarantee you’d hate to have a face to face conversation with me if you use it), the reason I take particular issue here is that this word, and others like it, regularly come from the mouths of college educated young adults — individuals who have been given a piece of paper stating that they worked hard to meet the rudimentary requirements to be productive, contributing members of society! This begs for the (rhetorical) question; What the heck has happened to our education system in the good old USA, anyway? Heh. Don’t even get me started on that one…
Now, I don’t claim to always have a complete handle on English grammar myself (when is it I should contract ‘its’ in the possessive?), but it worries me to think that the art of our spoken and written English language is slowly giving way to thug influenced slang as a means of acceptable communication.
Mark my words. I foresee a generation of slackers who speak in double-negatives and don’t know the difference between a preposition and a cucumber before Generation X finally passes away.
