Web-lightenment

I beleive we're in the midst of an interesting transformation. At the close of 2004, the active internet population reached approx. 900 million users wordwide. While the spectrum of type of access still remains a contrast (from high end mobile phones to donated 486 DX2's in lesser developed areas), its still encouraging to note this rise. I can't help but observe how powerful this makes us... especially on one aspect - Knowledge. We're entering an era with unlimited access to knowledge platforms. There's no more excuses to not know something since you're literally seconds away from an answer on your favourite search engine.. a gateway to the conglomeration... convergence... unifying force of all our minds. Its scary to imagine that innocence might soon have to be deleted from our vocabularies... this fueled by the increased competitiveness in our cultural upbringing.

On that note i recently stumbled upon one such gateway convergence - YaGoohoogle. As interesting, creative and simple as the solution may be, I feel the interface or experience is rather cacophonic. Nevertheless, it did its bit to yelp a lil' WOW in the back of my head for a split second. Being a simple project too, I totally respect the creator for putting into practice what many internet users might have discussed after a few beers, as a possible business idea... and obviously left them as faded ideas.

(Aside : Imagine if we had the power or found some means to cognite all these random ideas that people around the world come up with at random times, and leave them all on an online database, where perhaps someone else can login, hear their calling, and implement the suggested idea?... Business idea? .. Hmmmmm ... ;) Well i just personally copyrighted that one in your eyes, so promise me you'll testify if i'm ever plagarised)

Back to Yahoogoogle, oops, Yagoohoogle. I particularly liked one part on the Yagoohoogle Blog, the first posting. Personally, I found it subtly humorous that he's clearly eliminated Internet Explorer from his customization offerings, and catered to only Opera and Firefox users. All this brings me to my final word for today - a word to all those naive Internet Explorer users.

You'll have argued time and time again that you'll dont really care about any other browser, because IE satisfies your basic browsing needs. I do think thats more the innocence speaking and hence thought that i'll leave you'll with a few thoughts, in simple - non techie words... thoughts you'll would relate to with respect to "good ol" IE :)

1. Isnt it annoying when you keep opening new windows, it all piles up at the bottom side by side, then suddenly it either all comes back into one pile on top of each other, making it super irritating to keep clicking down there and choosing what you want to see.... OR... at the end of it all your computer hangs?
2. Are you tried of your homepage being reset to some crappy and random site which sometimes even streams porn!?
3. Sick of those zillion irrelevant windows that keep popping up sometimes on some sites you visit?
4. Do you know that by using IE, your computer has some malicious stuff installed that is sending loads of information about you to unknown people? Hmmm.. wonder how that makes you feel about banking online. Does security mean anything at all in your life?
5. Tired of IE taking loads of time to load pages? Even when you sometimes click "back" and it takes minutes to load a page you just visited?
6. Feel your computer becomes too slow when you are surfing the internet?
7. Do you want to customise the way you surf the internet to your own style of browsing and the way the browser should look?

I could go on and on, especially for the more tech-savy people, but all in all, if one of your life principles state that you should move ahead in time, and you answered YES to any of the above - then download a different browser. There's a wealth of resources out there to help you make your choice, but personally, in my most unbiased tone, recommend Opera by far. Why??.. you may ask. I'll save that for our personal debate, coz first i'll wanna hear the good news that you're making the switch. In the meanwhile, for the tech-savy, read this. And for all you firefox users, congratulations on making the switch, but the best experience still remains elusive.. ask me why! :)