Testing 1, 2, 3...

As some of you may have noticed, I have been testing new ways of doing things the past couple days.  The list includes: Firefox and Google Chrome browsers, and the new Seesmic Desktop for Windows.  This is a more in-depth review than I can post on twitter or facebook.

Seesmic for Windows:  Nice interface, and MUCH better memory usage than old desktop client or TweetDeck.  However, it is lacking several features that TweetDeck has and I actually use quite often.
Here are some of the pros and cons:
• no automatic URL shortening (supposedly coming soon)
• no ability to translate foreign language tweets
• no inline picture previews - goes straight to browser
• I have noticed some "missing tweets" when compared to twitter web interface, but some that did not come through in tweetdeck, DO come through in Seesmic - Kind of a crap-shoot.
• There is nice support for twitter lists - drag n drop to add to list, but lists do not seem to update properly or at all. Even hitting refresh does not bring in all tweets.
• No big deal, but no timestamps on posts, like twitter web just "about 10 minutes ago", etc.
• At this point, no ability to control api usage, refresh rate, or sounds
• No ability to follow/unfollow from application (that I have seen)
• It does seem to support special characters such the "heart" <3 and music notes.
• And finally no support for facebook or myspace yet.

Now, all of the things listed are of course subject to change as this is just a preview version of the program.  I'm sure some of the options will be added and/or changed as they go towards final build.  If any of the developers are reading this post, please take the above listed as suggestions of what to try to work in.

Final verdict: for now at least, I will be sticking with Tweetdeck, but watching for updates and improvements in Seesmic Windows as it DOES have LOTS of potential!  As noted earlier, I especially like the minimal memory/cpu usage.  If you would like to try it out yourself go to http://seesmic.com and sign up to try it out.

Moving on....

I have tried a couple new browser as alternatives to Internet Explorer 8. Although I do like IE8, I've noticed a few problems with it relating to flash, and some javascript. This may be due to the fact that I am running a 64 bit version of Windows 7 and everything is not yet totally compatible.

Google Chrome:  This is a pretty slick interface, very clean. First thing I noticed is that the Google Toolbar does not work with it. WTF? This is a Google product, and it's own toolbar is not compatible???  It does have tabbed browsing and is very fast to load pages. Overall, I could use it, but I don't prefer it.  Will play with it a little more off and on. Still learning how to get around and what does what...

Mozilla Firefox: Very nice, slick interface. Support for plug-ins and add-ons.  Very fast to load pages. The scripting errors I recieved in IE do not happen in this browser.  Missing is the ability to adjust and re-arrange toolbars to my liking.  Still learning how to get around, and what does what, and how to customize.  I have temporarily at least set it to be my default browser.  Final verdict on browsers is pending.

I hope I didn't bore you all to death with this.  I wanted to post my experiences so that you can decide for yourself if you care to try any of this software out.  If you have anything to add or to comment on, please leave a comment below.

Thank you for your time today!