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I am sure we have all had the “best internet browser” conversation with friends and/or co-workers. Safari and Netscape are still at the kids table in this scenario, and I pretty much hate the entire way IE7 is set up. I am required to use it at work to launch a .net program and otherwise pretty much avoid it at all costs. This leaves basically Firefox. We already know this comes with all the amazing plug-ins and customization’s to set it above the rest. There is no debate that Firefox wins any King of the hill contest. It actually also wins at tag, rover-red-rover, murder in the dark, sardines, dodge-ball, and 500.

The Other White Meat

Another browser I use on occasion, is called the Sunrise Browser. I am using it more frequently now that Firefox doesn’t like me ( especially since it randomly quit on me half way through writing this ). Available only for Mac OS X users, the Sunrise Browser is an alternative which has been designed as an open-source browser for web developers. No, I know it isn’t as cool or customizable as Firefox yet, but the first few themes, tool-bar icon sets, add-ons, and tools have started to be developed. Anyhoo, as it is currently, these first few releases of the browser do still have quite a few eye-brow raising features on top of being ‘FTAOBIHUSTTISMFMCM’ (faster than any other browser I have used since the time I saw my first Michael Caine movie).

Code Hunting

You want to view the code for an entire web page in a text editor for easy modification and saving? Don’t even act like you can’t.
This window that displays the code uses the Transparent Window Slider which you will read about in just a minute if you don’t get too bored. You can also search this HTML for specific code’s using a built-in tool.

PDF’s From the Web Page

So you really like the entire design and set up of a page and have some circumstance where you want to save every inch of that page from top to bottom in a viewable format as it is before they change it, or so you can still copy the design in a place where you don’t have internet access, or what ever. The Sunrise Browser allows you to save the entire web page as it is being viewed in a PDF. No, I don’t mean a screen shot. If the page required 10 minutes of double-fingered track-pad scrolling to see it all, you can save it all.

Graphical Bookmarks

You don’t have to actually visit a web-page again to add it to your bookmarks, you can directly save bookmarks from your browsing history. In addition, you can have a graphical book mark folder. This allows you to browse your saved book-marks by viewing a screen-shot or prominent images from that website. Maybe you frequently visit a variety of photography blogs and want to remember them by some of the pictures on the site. This, and what ever other reason you can think of why you might want to represent your bookmark with an image is probably why they did it. I can see myspacers, bloggers, nerds, and ATHF Carl types using this for a variety of different purposes. These bookmarks can be sorted by URL, date and title which comes in a pop-up menu, and can be edited, renamed and moved.

Window Re-sizing

On the web browser main tool bar, you have the ability to resize the window for the viewing simulation of different screens. This feature is more of a web developer tool. I don’t remember ever thinking what my website would look like on a 640×480 SVGA display, but someone would. Auto re-sizing options are: 640×480 (VGA), 800×600 (SVGA), 1024×768 (XGA), full-screen, full-height resolutions. This of course doesn’t mean you can’t custom resize your window with a corner click and drag, you still can.

Transparent Browser Windows

Next, you have the ability to make your browser transparent. A sliding bar changes this level of transparency. I don’t have the leisure of owning a second monitor for my MacBook, but I can still have the work flow that I am used to at my job with having two full windows open that I can work between without the need to constantly click between two different windows, or without sacrificing window size by cutting one down to fit on the left half of my 13″ display, and the other window to the right half. I have quite often made my stickies or notepad a floating transparent window, as well as IM boxes. This was a feature incorporated for web developers to readily view code as they are working.

Honorable Mentions

#1. If you have a huge URL extension that includes 2 miles of crap and all you want is the http://areallygoodname.com part of it, ’shift-command-c’ will only copy the homepage URL and automatically disregard the junk. #2. If you want to show just the URL of a page in a really large floating window for your near-sighted or URL-happy pleasure- there is also a shortcut. #3. The URL field can act as your search engine. Just type in what you are searching, like the phrase “Jello Prank” and if you have set the preference for your default search engine, let’s say YAHOO in this example, the URL field will act the same way FireFox’s does when you set it up for a ‘gg: (your search term here)’ function. ( yeah. . . dare you to search yahoo for jello prank and see who is fourth) #4. You can grab the web page URL icon with a quick shortcut. #5 Automatically, the link URL of external CSS files in web page’s source code is extracted, and it is displayed as a list. #6 Your mom goes to college.

The Final Word

Progress usually stems from competition driving people to be innovative to better their opponents. Technology and advancement can’t be stifled by a market being entirely dominated by a single person/company or group (ahem… Bill?). My only real point is, with all these different options and innovations available with things we use, it’s healthy to see someone new step up even if they end up failing, to at-least keep the big dogs on their toes and to continue to make our web browsers, Operating Systems, and our “whatevers” improving.

UPDATE: Download Sunrise Here

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Let’s not be silly, of course I gave you the option to click on it and make it bigger.

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My family was patient enough to stop at all the different places I wanted them to as I put my fathers camera to use. Lucky Peak is not actually supposed to be this low on water, though droughts happen.

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I have another 5 or 6 photo’s finished from my Idaho trip over Christmas break. Feel free to let me know how you feel.

This is obviously from under-neath a bridge on our trip home from a cabin in Idaho City. The ice was thin- and I am probably pretty stupid from climbing down under there in the dead of winter.

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Just over a year ago, I started working in the Home Theater industry. I was privileged to have someone who was looking for labor and willing to teach me everything I needed to know about the business. This included installing, pricing, pre-wiring homes, programming systems, as well as updating old home theaters. Pre-wiring a home was never fun for me really. I even hired some friends to come help me out. I did have to design the over-all system before I ever actually did anything, then comes endless hole drilling, and running cable lines for 3 miles of (Read the article)

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This Jolly Roger Design is one I made last year on a scribbled piece of paper with a few others. My buddy Dave mentioned he liked it but that it was too “cartoony” so I cut down a little of the cartoon styling with out eliminating the the feel of still being an original Jolly Roger Design. I live in a house with a Pirate Flag out front and really just have it everywhere I turn in some way or another at our hours. So to make the Jolly Roger Design a little more original and have some “Jon Sandy” feel to it, I decided on the one below.

My Version of a Jolly Roger

This one is what I felt was the perfect design for my Pirate T-shirt’s that I am making (and selling.)

Usually most Jolly Roger designs are based on a skull and cross-bones. On that style, I found many of them basic and all very similar. This is why my pirate flag Jolly Roger Design was going to incorporate something different, such as a square head or disproportioned eyes.

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We are just chilling at Dave’s house - right now. Sam is going crazy on the guitar playing an awesome tool song. Tonight was supposed to be Jammin’ Home Evening. The standard monday home evenings for single college kids who are tired of single ward routines. We started it three years ago, and it just stopped after a while. Jammin’ Home Evening was a melting pot of guitar playing and music sharing from some extremely talented musicians. None of which were me.

This, was actually was just the same as every night now that I think about it. The Crew got together at The Hospice (Dave’s old house just south of BYU campus) and every single night it seemed, we had 10 + people going over and just passing the guitar around. It was a “No Dave Matthews” zone but pretty much everything else went. Every single stinkin night - and it was awesome. I just started picking up the guitar to play a little more seriously around that time. It was a most excellent time to be around this particular group of people. The term “Jammin’ Home Evening” was a night the same as every other, but that is what we still labeled every monday night. When we moved into The Alamo together things slowly changed.

Though tonight ended up being a slight failure (though there was still some music played randomly) - I think many of us actually hope to bring “Jammin’ Home Evening” back in full force since we don’t ever get together anymore to just hang out and play music outside of guitar night, and maybe cookie night once in a while. Though I only had 15 unique visitors to my blog yesterday, I hope that at least a few of you play the guitar or were part of that original group that just hung out being awesome every night and feel a desire to join… to make next time a little bit more of a success.

My apologies though, it probably would have been slightly better had I not spent time writing a blog post or voting to watch “Pride and Prejudice” (which we won’t do).

The Original Elephant Fairy

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Thanks to Sewell Direct, my employer for flying a group of us down to CES ( Consumer Electronic Show) in Las Vegas. Our trip is half over already and I still get the feeling that I want to do so much more while I am here. Sam and I have been paired for the show while our entire group splits up to cover the entire showroom floors. Our purpose is to find new manufacturers and suppliers to buy products to sell on our website.

The interesting thing is the habits and culture developed by the booth monkeys interested buyers. You actually have to have a BUYER badge to even get anyone to talk to you- and it seems at that point the most important thing is get the “buyers” CES card and swipe it (which gives them a printout of all our contact info and company interests. Another thing they seem high on retrieving is a business card. Doesn’t matter if I talk to them for 2 min or 30 in their minds, they swipe my CES card and get a business card, then they probably feel like they have the right to spam me for the next year.

All in all, I love being here and hope the rest of the trip continues to fare well. No gambling yet. Shopping at Urban Outfitters. Excellent food (including CheeseCake Factory for lunch today). Final note though- when I filled out my registration information to get my CES card for this show, it asked what technology and area’s Sewell is interested in. Since we have so many different categories and interests, I basically checked all of them. An interesting thing is when the booths here ask to swipe my card. Apparently it gives them a print out of all the area’s and categories I checked when I logged in. So when they ask to swipe it every time, I chuckle a little bit and let them. They are unaware of the 5 minute printout that is about to take place.

For more information on our trip to CES and what we have all been up to, Sam, Dan, and most of the other people in my Links! category on the right are here with me.

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