Okay, so there’s this blogger (bloggette?) named Little Miss Queenie who has decided to give away make up sort things on her blog. In an attempt to please the demands of my girlfriend, I have entered the contest at her behest. Wish me luck. If you so desire, you can also enter her contest at the following link (although there are lots of steps and you would need some motivation to finish the entering process).

To visit her site click here or just click on the giant cartoon of her. To go directly to the sweepstakes entry, click here.

Good luck and good riddance.

For those of you that don’t know, the World Health Organization has declared an international state of health emergency (meaning a large scale disease that is spreading at uncontainable levels) due to the recent outbreak of the H1N1 Swine Flu. That means we are in an international emergency. So get out that copy of I Am Legend, and start wishing you’re Will Smith, ‘cause if you aren’t. YOU’RE GONNA DIE!!! (The actual ending for that movie is MUCH better than the one we got in theaters, IMHO).

Here’s a map to track known cases of the flu (you may think Mexico is very far away, but think again, its already in Ohio):

• Suspected infections are the pink balloons
• Confirmed cases are the purple balloons
• Deaths are balloons with no black dot in the middle

I’m not comparing apples to oranges, so there’s no Firefox 3.5 in this comparison, as its still in beta. I’ll update this post as soon as Firefox 3.5 goes final and I’ve had a chance to use it for a while

So, without further ado, here we go!

I’ve always been an avid Firefox user, all the way back to when it was still called “Phoenix”, I was a Firefox user. Before that, I used Netscape almost exclusively (back when I was young and did not know the wonders of Linux), in essence, I’ve avoided Internet Explorer for a long time now. However, IE isn’t available in Linux, so I wanted to perform my tests (both quantitative and qualitative) in the same environment. All the tests and browsing were done on a brand new Sony Vaio FW laptop running Windows Vista Ultimate x64 w/ SP1.

Before I get to the personal impressions, here are your standard test results that concern numbers and the like, both browsers were fresh installs, and all private data was cleared before each test. For the cold start test, I restarted the computer, and bookmarked 5 websites (google.com, yahoo.com, live.com, espn.com and ign.com) that I had saved locally and set this as the homepages for each browser. Then, I measured the amount of time it took from the instant I clicked the shortcut to the time when every webpage reported itself as “Done.” For the warm start, I did the same thing, but I measured the time it took for the fifth time I started the browser after a restart. All commonly used plugins (Flash, Silverlight, and Java VM) were installed ahead of time. All tests were done 5 times (except for the cold start, as I did not want to restart 5 times) and averaged.

As we can see, Internet Explorer opens quickly, but once you actually getting around to browsing actual websites, at least according to these tests, it fails tremendously compared to Firefox (even Internet Explorer 7 got further than Internet Explorer 8 on Acid 3). Mozilla’s Gecko engine takes a commanding triumph over Microsoft’s Trident engine in this war, although Firefox’s XUL interface could use some further performance tweaks, but I guess that’s the tradeoff for cross platform compatibility.

However, in real world web surfing, Internet Explorer felt faster than Firefox. I attribute this to the difference in how IE and Firefox render pages, but just to make sure, I installed Fasterfox Lite (please note that this addon is still experimental, which means that it may not be safe for every day use) in Firefox, and sure enough, IE still felt faster, even though timing the actual load times proved that Firefox was faster at actually loading the pages. I’m not sure what causes this, maybe its the satisfying “Click” you hear in IE when you click on a link.

Things I like about Internet Explorer 8 (bolded are the things I REALLY like):

• Quick startup
• Pleasantly attractive interface (available with Firefox themes, even one that is designed to look like IE)
• Impressive search suggestions in search box (Firefox doesn’t support this)
• Draggable bookmark folders on the bookmark toolbar (Firefox can’t do this)
• InPrivate Mode (which actually blocks banner ads as well) (Firefox users can install Adblock Plus and Stealther). I STILL CAN’T FIGURE OUT HOW TO TURN THIS OFF WITHOUT CLOSING ALL OF MY BROWSING WINDOWS!!
• Every website on the planet is written for it (at least in Compatibility Mode anyway) (Firefox can render just about every site, except those that implement ActiveX, which only IE supports)
• Colored Tab Grouping (Firefox can’t do this, although there is an addon for it, it doesn’t work very well or at all)
• Snappy webpage loading
• Efficient use of screen real estate (Firefox users can install Personal Menu to hide the menubar)
• Crash restore for individual tabs
• Nice “New Tab” page (Firefox users can install Fast Dial or Google Toolbar to get Opera’s and Chrome’s new tab page respectively, but it doesn’t support one like Internet Explorer’s)

Things I like about Firefox 3.0.9 (bolded are things I REALLY like):

• Add-ons like Adblock Plus (which I personally don’t recommend, but it is quite nice), Personas, Shareaholic, GreaseMonkey and many many others. (IE users can install IEPro, which offers many additional features for IE)
• Fast, smooth web surfing
• Open source development philosophy
• Better RSS feed management
• Built in download manager
• Custom searches
• Cross platform compatibility
• Low RAM usage

If you’re just glancing at these two lists, it may look like I have much more to like about Internet Explorer than I do about Firefox, but that just isn’t true. Firefox Add-ons offer an infinite amount of customizability. There were many things both browsers had that I liked, such as suggestions in the address bar, find as you type, and bookmark and setting importers that work.

After being a Firefox user for a long time (I did have about 2 weeks when I randomly decided that Microsoft was my hero, and I didn’t use anything but Microsoft products, that experience has scarred me forever), I was pleasantly surprised by how far Internet Explorer 8 has come, and I can’t wait for Microsoft to push out the automatic update for it. To those people who haven’t heard of Firefox, please try it! But if you’re stuck with Internet Explorer, or are scared to try new things, Internet Explorer 8 certainly isn’t a bad choice either.

The browser I’ll be using for the rest of today and like, ever?

Note: I have purposely ignored Chrome, Opera and Safari as Firefox and Internet Explorer are the top choices for most users out there. Whether you’re on Mac, Linux or PC, Firefox should be your number 1 choice for internet browsing. Think otherwise? Chrome lover (Matt! I’m looking at you!), Opera junkie? Other browsers? Any Lynx users out there? Konquerer? Tell me about it in the comments!

Edit: Just a quick fyi, this screenshot doesn’t represent a test or anything, but this is what IE’s RAM usage looked like after about 2 hours of normal web browsing with only Xmarks being the only addon installed. That’s almost 800 MB of RAM just to IE folks. That’s crazy…

Give me things to do! Cool sites to check out, games to play, anything!

I have tons of homework tonight, but hey, that just makes posting an entry all the more enticing, right? Yes, I know that in a lot of ways, I’m spoiled. However, I’m still going to be as honest as possible with this list, but it won’t include people, remember these are things! The people I can’t live without are my family and Ranni. I can’t live without God either.

10. Digg

Oh Digg, where would I get my daily dose  of random, off the wall news without you? After discovering this site in 2006, I’ve Dugg over 3000 stories, submitted 40 of my own, and have made over 50 comments. I have 61 friends on Digg, which is probably more than I do in real life (but I have some 435 on Facebook, go figure). Without Digg, I don’t know how I’d fill those days when I’m up ‘till the wee hours of the night procrastinating on homework.

9. Fast Food

Hungry? Too lazy to cook? Can’t cook? Lack someone to cook for you? Don’t fret! Just drive right down the street and hit up the local Subway, Wendy’s, McDonald’s or any of the dozens of other fast food restaurants. My favorites? The Baconator at Wendy’s, and the Steak Burrito at Qdoba, mmmmmmmm.

8. My Cell Phone (A lowly, free, SPH-m300)

I know, I’m not even able to text, but it absolutely freaks me out when I miss a call. It freaks me out even more when that call was something important. You’ll never see me without my cell phone, it’s one of the 3 things that are always in my pockets (the other two being my wallet and my keys).

7. The Internet

What’s this? The internet is only number 7? Have I gone crazy? No, I really enjoy using the internet, and you’ll never see me without Gmail, Remember the Milk, Google Calendar and Pidgin open, but I’ve gone weeks without an internet connection, and I’ve been just fine. Oh sure, I was a bit overwhelmed when I came back, but nothing a little Gmail filtering and hardcore keyboard macros can’t handle.

6. Access to University of Michigan Sports (especially football and basketball)

I try to catch every game possible, and when I can’t, I always come back and watch it later if I’ve taped it, and if I didn’t tape it, then I go and read every possible recap of the game, trying to find out exactly what happened. I’m so obsessive (which you would know if you read my previous posts) about Michigan sports, it’s definitely unhealthy. Thank goodness for ESPN360, it has saved my butt quite a few times when my lame HD antenna fails to receive the game.

5. Videogames

I’m not video game nerd (you may beg to differ all you want, I stand by what I think!) but I am wholly convinced that video games are a legitimate way of interacting with other people, and a very fun one at that. Who doesn’t enjoy some good, simple fun with Mario Kart and Smash, or some hardcore (not that Mario Kart and Smash can’t be hardcore, because they most certainly can) Resistance or Halo? I’m up for any of those games, even though I’m quite horrible at console FPS (I just don’t get how dual analog sticks can even try to compete with the precision of the mouse, although I’m following the development of The Conduit for the Wii very very closely, as it’s shaping up to be awesome).

4. Americanized Chinese Food

I love Panda Express, China Wok, Lucky Kitchen and anywhere else that sells greasy “Chinese Food”. Did you know that General Tso was white? Yeah, a white guy invented that. Chinese people traditionally don’t eat chicken, but that’s what Americans like, so that’s what we sell. Either way, orange chicken has got to be one of my favorite foods in the world, and paired with fried rice, Mmm mm mm mm… good!

3. My Teddy Bear

Cue the emphatic “awwwwwwwws” or the derogatory “SISSY!” at this point. There’s no denying that I love my stuffed bear. His name is Cubbi, and he was specially customized from a Build-a-bear workshop from a very special friend of mine for my birthday. Yes, I am taking the bear to college, but I’ll need to find a way to keep it from getting destroyed by my roommates.

2. My Two Babies (Desktop and Laptop)

I do a lot of light web surfing and basic word processing, but the reason why I have such powerful machine is that I do much heavy duty stuff as well. Be it editing photos and videos or converting files, I need the extra oomph my computers offer me. The great gaming performance is a definite plus as well. Of the two, I really can’t say which one I like better, because I don’t know. It’s like your kids! You like them both the same (or so our parents lead us to believe…)

1. What Could Possibly Be More Important to Me Than My Computer?

My bed. I’m really picky about where I sleep and how I sleep, I find it very difficult to sleep anywhere else. I love the soft springs of my mattress, and my thick pink down comforter, and my two big soft down filled pillows. I’m falling asleep just thinking about it…