It seems that search giant Google was concocting a surprise for browser companies dominating the market, a new browser it calls chrome. Who can resist taking it for a spin? Not RMO! 
Since the download link sits right smack at the center of the Google search home page, downloading and installing it was a snap. The installer/downloader got the browser files from the repository in about 5 minutes and we’re set to go.
Right off the bat, the difference from most browsers was evident. Firing up Chrome was almost instantaneous on a 2 GHz Core Duo with 2 Gigs of RAM. It takes Firefox 3 two seconds to load and Opera 9.5 around 3 seconds on this set-up.
The user interface was cleaned-up. Gone is the menu bar. It’s simple, uncluttered, and minimalist. The menu options are now placed in the right corner under a wrench icon. There are 2 features we immediately liked: (1) we can configure Chrome to open selected pages on start-up and (2) opening a new tab (still works with Ctrl+T) shows us the site we recently visited.
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Our first impression of Chrome? Simply great. Sorry Opera, we have a new back-up browser. We’ll still be using Firefox 3 as primary until the SEO and web development plugins we need are ported or integrated into Chrome. For those who simply want to browse the web, Chrome is worth a look.
We wonder how will Chrome affect Google’s relationship with Mozilla Firefox. Will the search giant stop supporting the highly popular browser?
Check out this web comic intended to launch the browser.
Knol, a wikipedia cum squidoo cum article directory service that is uniquely Google was heralded as the Wikipedia whacker. At first glance, its design and layout does bear a likeness to that monolithic online knowledgebase, including the NoFollow tag in every outgoing link. However, the similarity is only skin deep. The working principles between the two are poles apart.
In Wikipedia, a host of editors or contributors, often anonymous, keeps one article for each topic. All efforts are voluntary and uncompensated. On the other hand, Knol may contain many articles for every topic, contributed by experts that Google verifies by phone. Not only are the articles credited to a person, authors also have the potential to make money online for their labor with Google AdSense.
If we are familiar with Squidoo, we can see that Knol’s idea is closer to it. Squidoo encourages us to write on our expertise and we also have the chance to earn money with Google AdSense. Since Google AdSense reeks of money, ReapMoneyOnline can’t resist the urge to register with Knol and browse around. Some of the articles there are impressive, with authors having a series of letters, periods, and commas after their names. Knol did say it is a knowledgebase of experts in their chosen fields.
But wait! Don’t we have one thing that we know more about than the rest of the world combined? We zoomed in on a treatise about a certain medical condition written by a physician, one of Knol’s Beta testers. His page was informative but forlon. Next, we selected a link much close to our heart, blueberry pancakes! A father authored it to share a recipe much loved by his family. There was a lively discussion going on in the comments section about pancakes.
If somebody wants to try his or her hands on making money online without creating and being responsible for a website, Knol’s way is worth a peek. Learning about keywords, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Google Adsense may increase the chance for success.
