The only thing I don't like so far is the conversion of HTML paragraph tags to line breaks. I can add these quite easily in Write view, but once you swipe back to the WYSIWYG mode, they're automatically converted.

Kind of a bummer.

I will come in handy to post quickies that I'll revisit to put in proper look and feel. Pretty much how I use Amplify, come to think of it. Just have to remember NOT to preview!

Another annoying thing – Blogsy doesn’t handle the post-break code (using the HTML span tag) very well, and is another thing that needs fixing once I get a chance to download a post for editing.

In case you were wondering, the break code works fine on this post, because it’s been edited after posting.

One thing I could do is to do a posting without the break while on the road, and add that in later. Something to consider.

One of the main shortcomings is that while facilities are provided to embed pictures and other media, the choice of available online image repositories is limited. Another shortcoming I find is that this tool does not really cater to bloggers who use a standard template that is to be re-used.

But perhaps the biggest shortcoming is that while there is a text editor function built in, it treats text as whole objects, making template blogging impossible. It treats the template as an entirely different object altogether.

So now, we're gonna test what happens when one inserts blocks of text into the post.

One of the reasons for testing this is that a number of dynamic content sharing facilities on the Internet are starting to use the newer iFrame tag. Also, I believe that this may allow Flash-based content to be viewed on the iPad – not entirely sure at this point. Perhaps we’ll test that out when some content gets found...

In the meantime, the success of this test means that in the future, it’s bye-bye <object>... it’s old style, and we gotta move with the times!

First off, the interface is uber simple and clean-looking. In fact, deceptively simple, at least at first glance. There are actually a lot of things going on "under the hood". The first thing you'll notice when you crank Chrome up is the thumbnail bookmark gallery, which is automatically generated, based on your browsing history. In other words, the user interface itself is dynamic, belying it's apparent simplicity.

Comparing Chrome to IE, another thing becomes apparent after using it for some time - resource management. I haven't actually done any tests, but Chrome seems to hog up less resources. Even better is that each tab is a separately encapsulated process, meaning that if a particular page you're browsing bombs on you, the other tabs are not effected.

The one major pain I find with Internet Explorer is that because it's so deeply embedded within and around the Windows Operating System, any browser fault tends to effect the rest of the processes running on your machine. Not so with Chrome. I've been using it for the better part of the whole of the last week or so (since its release), and I find that it's very non-intrusive in as far as the OS is concerned.

Being something from Google, the address bar also acts as a Google Search input window, which is a nice thing, with the added feature of having predictive URL suggestions or related item capability, partly based on your browsing history. So for people like me whose memory can sometimes go into sieve mode, it makes calling up web pages much easier, without having to rely on your bookmarks all the time.

There are other features, too, which I won't elaborate here. You can learn all about them here.

So why did Google build a browser?

At Google, we spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And like all of you, in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends - all using a browser. People are spending an increasing amount of time online, and they're doing things never imagined when the web first appeared about 15 years ago.

Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff - the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.
(source: Google Chrome - Why we built a browser)

Chrome Beta promises to be a platform to power future web applications that "aren't even possible in today's browsers" - and somehow, I tend to believe what I'm hearing.

Now, any software product is bound to have kinks in it, particularly in the early stages of release.

There are certain websites that don't work very well with Chrome. At least not for the present. One of them is Photobucket, which I use as my image repository, both for this blog and my other blog, myAsylum. The problem I have is that it's not possible to upload pictures, and the source of this problem, I suspect, in how Chrome handles Java Scripts, which Photobucket uses for the various functions they offer. So, for uploading to Photobucket, at least for now, I still have to rely on IE.

I've also noticed the same thing with some of the Facebook applications that I've tried running on Chrome, which further reinforces my suspicion about the Java Script handling.

For the most part, however, my week-or-so long experience with Chrome has been more than satisfactory. For now, it's only available for use with Windows, but probably won't remain that way for long. Word is that development of Mac and Linux versions is ongoing.

Chrome works great with Blogger, by the way, although the alignment when you start a new post up can sometimes get a little screwy - not a big problem, though... just Reload the page, and things get back to looking like they.

If you're looking for a lean, mean, non-resource-hogging browser, I'd strongly recommend that you give Chrome a test-drive. My guess is that you'll like what you experience... the beauty and power of simplicity! 

What's a widget, anyway? Essentially, they are encapsulated applications that you can embed in your webpage or blog without the need to do any hardcore coding. In fact, the code is loaded during pageload, and what you have in terms of actual code you have to include on your site are essentially pointers to where in cyberspace the actual code resides, what executable is required (for example, Flash), etc.

There are countless widgets available on the Internet, from the useful (like the date/time application), to the most worthless and waste of bandwidth types - like the one below the Time/Date widget.

Where can you find widgets? For a start, check out this wiki devoted to widgets, called Widgipedia (of course, what else would you call it?). Then, there's Widgetbox, mentioned earlier, where I found the Time/Date widget.

Google and Yahoo! have their own collections, too, called Gadgets and Widgets, respectively. I've used the ones from Google before on myAsylum, but not the ones from Yahoo.

Beyond that, just do a websearch for the terms "gadgets" or "widgets"... the choices are endless, truth be told. But my advice is this: pick, choose, experiment, and change often. Widgets can be fun things to have on your blog, but they do slow down load times, so don't go overboard.

Blogger has also released a How-To video on YouTube, as part of its Blogger Help series.

Unless you're totally uncomfortable with doing anything with your layout, it's actually a cake-walk to implement. No messing around with coding whatsoever.

So, why am I still considering whether or not to use it on myAsylum? Well, for one thing, the blogrolls currently are hidden until you expand them - this is not something Blogger does as a standard, and is a custom tweak. I've not had time to see if this can be done with the new Blog List or not.

What might be a better thing to do is to feature a few blogs at a time, as feature blogs, and select the post-snippet function which the new widget supports, but which I did not enable.