I’m trying the new Flock Beta on Windows 7. All I can say is, “wow”. Flock is now based on Google’s Chomium project, which affords increased speeds from Mozilla’s Firefox project.  Both projects are open-source, so this can be done without violating any terms of service. How about a screenshot? The layout of the homepage is quite simple, with some most visited links, a Google search, tabs up top, and some links to my profile and whatnot.  I quite like the setup.  As you can see, I’ve added Instapaper, Shareaholic, Stumbleupon, and Adthwart extensions to Flock; makes my life easier. The sidebar has been revamped, as you can see in the next screenshot… I’m having an issue with Facebook signing in right now, so I don’t have Facebook enabled in the sidebar at this time, but once I get it fixed, I’ll be sure to report on how it works. The biggest difference from the old flock to the new (besides the UI change) is the fact that it’s based on Google Chromium and webkit instead of Mozilla Firefox and Gecko.  This makes the browser BLAZING fast.  If you’ve used Chrome or Chromium, then you know the speed I’m talking about.  The Flock team has just built onto the Chromium project to make their browser, similar to how they built onto the Firefox browser to make the old version. Besides the issue with Facebook, the other issue I have with this browser is that it’s only available for Windows (XP, Vista, and 7).  It isn’t available in Linux or Mac right now, and I think that’s a darn shame, as many creative people are on Mac and Linux.  I’m hoping they will release an easy-to-install version for both platforms soon.  I’ve expressed my displeasure on Tumblr as well as marked a couple of threads on getsatisfaction about the issue.  I think the devs are taking this problem and packaging Flock for those OSes.  Anyway, I hope they are. EDIT:  Here's a video from the Flock site that explains the new Flock.  Please watch and pass it on.

Ok, here's a shout to the Flock devs. I'd like to see some new services.  I've hoped for (some of) these services for about year now.  Here we go... Tumblr Tumblr is a great blogging and mini-blogging platform.  It's got some great features (namely an awesome community and ease of posting) and has a rather robust API.  Not that there are a lot of apps that work with Tumblr, but I'd like to see the blogging aspect be supported.  Maybe add a bookmarklet functionality withiin Flock so you can easily add pictures, links, music, etc into your blog.  Also, being able to see what the people you're following are posting without going to the site, although Tumblr is very well organized. Identi.ca I've said it before and I'll say it again.  I'd like to see identi.ca added to the microblogging line-up.  It's free, open-source, and has mega-features.  Even if they just supported Status.net, that would be a setp in the right direction.  I could then run identi.ca through the status.net protocol.  Identi.ca uses a similar API to Twitter, so this shouldn't be too difficult to implement. Friendfeed Friendfeed is another great micro-blogging site that also aggregates your blog, music, and other feeds through RSS.  I'm not sure how easy it is to work with the API.  There are apps that use it (like Gwibber). Posterous Posterous is another mini-blogging site similar to Tumblr.  It's simple to work with through email, but if it had some browser integration, it'd be even better. LinkedIn This would be a neat addition, but isn't really required.  LinkedIn makes it easy to connect with people in industry. ~~~~~ The biggest ones I'd like to see added are Tumblr and Identi.ca.  Add those, and I'll be happy beyond belief.  I might use my browser for more microblogging then.

Ok.  The title of my post is kind of misleading.  It's mostly going to be about Opera (my modified version of it anyway).  Everyone knows I use Flock as my main browser (I'm writing this post in Flock's blog writer) and I love it. Let's get to it. The Good Opera is blazing fast.  Like, insane fast.  Wow.  I was blown away by how fast it loaded and how quickly it brought up Google.  I love the layout, and the fairly easy way to customize the layout. There is an adblocking feature that you can enable.  Right-click on your page, and click "block content".  The print will disappear, and the page will show all the blockable content.  Just click on the stuff you want blocked, click on the "done" button, and there you have it.  Well, you have to do this with every stinking page you frequent, but once you do it, it should be done.  There is an easier way, however.  Go here and follow the instructions.  I run Ubuntu, so my file is: /home/gamerchick02/.opera/urlfilter.ini.  Modify that, and you should be good with most ads. That makes the browsing experience much better. In my panels, I added mobile delicious and mobile Ping so I can access those services in the sidebar. Opera skins makes it easy to add and change skins for Opera.  There is also a widget engine that you can use for twitter or digg or weather.  I don't use very many, because I think they get in the way.  Maybe I don't think they're useful, but I might just not have found the right ones to use. The (not so) Bad The only really bad thing about Opera is that it doesn't allow the use of Firefox addons (or any addons, really).  I really like several addons (stumbleupon, shareaholic, adblock and flashblock).  There is no blog editor (also no addon for it like scribefire), no twitter, no mail checker, no photo uploader, etc.  It doesn't have the features of Flock.  I really like all the little features of Flock. ~~~ There you have it.  I'll make myself use Opera 10 for awhile.  I like it, but I don't think anything will really pull my attentions away from Flock. ~~~ Edit: I really like the visual tabs feature of Opera.  This is a really neat feature; as you can see what tabs you have open (ie, what the pages look like).  I've also started using the Speed Dial feature, and got rid of my Personal Bar.  This gives me some more room for the browsing window.

This is the quick-and-dirty way to install Flock on Ubuntu and it involves installation to the /home folder.  This will allow the browser to update using regular user permissions; ie the user will not have to run this browser as root (sudo) to update the program.  It will update similarly to the way it updates in Windows.

1. Download the browser from here.
2. Copy the downloaded tar file to your /home directory.
3. Right-click on the archive, and choose "extract here".
4. A folder will be created in the /home directory.
5. To create an entry in your menu, (I'm assuming the user is using Gnome), right click on the application menu, navigate to the "internet" menu, and click "new item".  In this "item", name it.  Then click on "browse" to create a command for it.  Go to /home/flock and click on "flock-browser".  Click "open" and the command box will be populated.  To create an icon for this menu item, click on the launchpad looking thing-o button.  This opens a window that shows you the available icons.  The proper icon won't be there, so click on "browse".  Go to /home/flock again, and this time, click on the folder labeled "icons".  Click "open" and now you'll be able to pick which icon you want.  You can further customize this by adding a saying like "Browse the social web" or something.
6. You're pretty much done.  All that needs to be done is to grab all the plugins from Firefox and copy them to Flock.  To do this, type this command: "sudo ln -s /usr/lib/firefox/plugins /home/flock/plugins".
7. You're done! Now you should be able to use Flock just like Firefox.  Don't forget to sign in to your blog, twitter, flickr, facebook, etc so you can use it to it's fullest.  I also recommend going to the Mozilla Addons page to get adblock, flashblock and other addons you can't live without.  Also, you can go here and get flock-only extensions.

And there you have it.  Please see this post for some more information on installation.  If you do it this way, however, you won't be able to update via the automatic updater unless you run it as root. ~~~~~ Originally published on Linux.com here.

I tried a "new" firefox extension.  I think it's been around for awhile, but it's new to me. Yoono. Now, this extension is an addon that combines all your favorite social media together into Firefox: Twitter, Gmail, Hotmail, Y! Mail, digg, Google Reader, etc, etc.  This addon tries to add everything that Flock has. It does a good job with things:

• Twitter updates
• Gmail updates
• Google Reader
• Friendfeed
• Facebook
• Myspace

But, I have a couple of things I don't like about it...  Like the advertisement that sits in the bottom right corner.  Sometimes that ad is blocked by my flash blocker, but much of the time, it isn't.  That bothers me.  The pop-ups bother me as well.  It has a notification pop-up that, while handy, has the potential to be annoying.  The good thing they do with it is the pop-ups is that they combine ALL of the notifications into one pop-up with little arrows on it so you can cycle through the notifications in one pop-up so your screen doesn't get covered with pop-ups.  Very handy, and I wish Gwibber would implement that. Try it out here and see what you think about it. I'm going back to Flock for my browsing needs.  Firefox does a lot, but Flock does some things better.  I need to keep Firefox around in case some flash stuff doesn't work with Flock (although I've copied all the files I need over to the Flock folder, so it should work). I guess I really like having a separate program for all the microblogging stuff (Gwibber).  It makes things easier for me to deal with.  Sometimes the browser shouldn't be a "swiss army knife" for your internet browsing. I won't be using Yoono anytime soon on my Ubuntu boxes, but I might use it on my Windows partitions.  I'll most likely just use Flock, as it has all of the functionality of Yoono.