Maxthon browser for Playbook versus iPad Safari browser

Not having access to a laptop, I am using a Playbook.  While the default Playbook browser is less than adequate for many tasks and web sites, the free Maxthon browser performs admirably with many web sites, due to it mimicking an Android browser user agent (among others).  According to What's My User Agent?, the user agent is:

Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; zh-cn; HTC Sensation XE with Beats Audio Z715e Build/GRJ22)Maxthon AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1

Compare this to the user agent of the default Playbook browser:  

Mozilla/5.0 (PlayBook; U; RIM Tablet OS 2.1.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/536.2+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.2.1.0 Safari/536.2+
   

Using Google Docs is a better experience than with the default Playbook browser and no Bluetooth keyboard.  Having said that, I am now typing this post using an iPad and the ease of use is noticeably higher.  The iOS copy and paste, text selection and cursor repositioning (magnifying glass), and auto spelling correction features are more intuitive than those of the Maxthon browser (Maxthon doesn't use the default Playbook OS edit features).  I used to think that the iPad is mainly a "consumption" device but it is large enough to do multi-finger touch typing with the virtual keyboard.  Combined with the excellent edit functionality, it is an worthy laptop alternative when you have a table and case/stand.

Hmmm, just noticed some weirdness with attempting to apply some labels to this post, but I think it was because I was zoomed in.

So what makes a good web browser?  Besides web pages rendering as intended by the page author, if you're going to do anything where you have to type some characters (this may include typing a URL or search term) and if you don't have a hardware keyboard, you should have good text editing capability.  That is, auto spelling correction and cursor repositioning, and for productivity:  copy-and-paste and text selection features.

[Updated August 2, 2013]

CBC Spark: Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection

• Listen
• Need to realize that media out of context can be misinterpreted by others.  Need to have a conversation with those upset with us, rather than just saying they are "wrong"
• We get less international news than before from broadcasts (newspaper, newscast, etc.).  Broadcasts are giving us what we want (local news) rather than what we need.  We also curate for news that we already have an understanding of.  International news is important because we live in a globalized world.   
• Broadly, news/information comes from three channels:
• professionally curated (newspaper, newscast, etc.)
• our own searches
• social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
• Despite being able to look at any web site around the world, we are still very narrow-minded
• One problem is homophily:  Our friends typically have the same view and get similar news as we do 
• Language restrictions:  Most of us have no access to the part of Web created by hundreds of millions of Chinese people due to language issues
• Bridge figures - those that know two cultures equally well and can explain one culture to those of the other culture
• Difficult to find information via serendipity because Web is programmed to provide links to things we will like with great certainty (that is, similar to things we liked before).  This is caused by the risk-adverse nature of  the Web driven by advertising

Citrix and Remote Desktop data usage - lower than expected

I had to get some work done while being on the road.  All the files were on my work computer and my personal laptop didn't have the right software.  I was very apprehensive about using Citrix Desktop and then subsequently Remote Desktop to access my workstation, due to unknown data usage. 

According to my mobile data provider (Wind Mobile), I used approximate 35.4 MB over a 1 hour period.  This was less than I expected but in line with other observations.  I was editing a document but needing to switch between other windows to collect information and do some data manipulation.  My laptop resolution is 1600 x 900 (and my Remote Desktop session was adjusted to the same).

So for getting a few things done at work while being on the road, using Citrix and Remote Desktop won't eat up your data allotment. 

Trying to let go of Firefox

For the last several months, have pondered switching my default desktop web browser from Firefox to Chrome.  The impetus came from Firefox occasionally freezing because of buggy Plugins (e.g. Adobe Acrobat or Shockwave Flash), enormous memory consumption (could be the result of me having 9+ tabs open!), or poor performance (streaming music from music.cbc.ca can be jittery).  The straw that broke the camel's back was that I could not update the Shockwave Flash plugin that was automatically disabled in Firefox due to security vulnerabilities.  While I appreciate Firefox trying to protect my computer and its data, I likely needed Administrator privileges to update the plugin and I did not have them on this client-provided workstation.   

The two main reasons I have stuck with Firefox are the Delicious and Selenium IDE Extensions.  So I thought that I could start up Firefox whenever I needed to use Selenium IDE for some script-automated web browsing.  But I still needed good Delicious integration with my web browser.  Hopeful, I sought out Delicious extensions for Chrome and tried "Delibookmarks (Delicious Bookmarks)" from yasinecky and "Delicious Bookmarks" from blog.kasunbg.org, both third-party extensions.  Unfortunately, neither were anywhere close to the functionality offered by the official Firefox Delicious extension.  Easily Bookmarking and searching saved Bookmarks across computers is essential for me and neither were usable to me. 

I briefly entertained using the Chrome Bookmarks functionality which I believe is synced across Chrome logins on different computers but the simple concept of tags was not supported out of the box.  So it appears I will soldier on with Firefox but I'm open to alternatives.

Who to follow?

With so many innovative ideas and interesting people out there, it's sometimes difficult to decide who to follow and then what tweets, status updates, blog posts, etc. to focus on.  Here is my tentative criteria for people to follow, going forward, in order of descending priority:

• People that you know personally and who live in the same city - it's nice to be able to speak to people face-to-face and for extended periods of time
• People that you've met in person before but that live elsewhere - it's better to renew a relationship than to have had none at all
• People that work in your organization but that may work in a different location - easier to start a conversation with someone that is somewhat obligated to respond
• People you haven't met yet but live in the same city - potentially you can meet up with them
• Well-known people - you'd like to meet them but if you did, you probably wouldn't have more than an "elevator conversation" with them

Google disillusionment and smartphone convenience

After hearing about a prominent user's hacked digital life, I turned on Google 2-factor authentication.  I did notice that in order for my smartphone to continue accessing my email without needing to enter a code SMS'd to the phone, I needed to create an "application-specific password" for my smartphone email client.  Momentarily I sensed there was a security weakness here.  But because I had a general positive feeling that Google was very security-conscious, I thought the smart people working there had probably closed all the loopholes in this situation.  Then today I became aware of Google's ASP password issues.  Now I have to re-think if I have any very sensitive data stored in Google Drive.  I also no longer consider Google above and beyond the other online companies out there in a security sense:  Google has sunk to the depths of Dropbox and Sony. 

I believe that one of the big reason that users love their smartphones and tablets is because they don't have to re-enter their passwords.  I use a lot of cloud services like Evernote, various web email services and social networking sites and whereas the web version of these services will prompt me to re-enter the password on a frequent basis, the native smartphone versions NEVER prompt me.  Google had to preserve this convenient experience for users of Gmail, Google Calendar, etc. on smartphones despite implementing 2-factor authentication, and they were screwed because of their poor implementation.  How to get rid of passwords and still have security is the issue plaguing the digital industry. 

Windows Phone web browser malaise

Dropped by our local Microsoft store located at WEM on Monday and since my toddler was with me, only had time to try the Ringmark mobile browser features test on the latest Windows Phone 8 phones.  Both the HTC and Nokia were unable to make it past Ring 0.  My WP7.5 phone also can't pass Ring 0 and although there was improvement in the results with Windows Phone 8, they remain dreadful.  By contrast, the new Blackberry Z10 nearly passes Ring 1. 

If a platform is lacking in apps (relatively), it must have a web browser that is leading the pack and able to use web apps as they are currently deployed and implemented.  Very disappointed with Windows Phone and this is another step away from the platform for me.