So Google finally let loose with a real glimpse at Chrome OS today, unveiling it at an event in Mountain View today. It's pretty much what we've thought all along: a bootable browser with an affinity for web apps - especially Google's.

As you'd expect from a "browser OS," Google pretty much admits that Chrome OS isn't really intended for offline use. They see devices running Chrome as a compliment to the existing systems in your home or office. Local storage? That's not really part of the big picture either. Everything you save heads straight for the cloud.

And Google's staunch "no third party apps" stance means that no, you won't be running Firefox on Chrome OS. Google doesn't want other apps playing in their sandbox, it would seem.

Personally, it looks like I'll enjoy playing with Chrome OS but I can't see myself relying on it for day-to-day computing. I'd prefer to at least run a lightweight but fuller-featured linux distribution like xPud or Crunchbang where I have more flexibility.

Ok, I know all the cool kids like to take shots at Internet Explorer. Heck, I'll admit it -- I've done it myself. And yes, I do prefer using Google Chrome.

But there's something I just don't like about the way Google plans to get Chrome Frame onto users' systems. Group Product Manager Mike Smith and Software Engineer Alex Russell told TechCrunch that Google "won't be explicitly advertising it." Instead, they'll use "subtle methods to alert users to its existence."

Now, the mockup above is anything but subtle. I'd assume - based on what Google has done in the past on the search page - that users will probably see a small alert in the upper-right corner.

Here's my question - why not just push Chrome? Why push an option that bolts Chrome on to Internet Explorer? TC's MG Siegler says the plugin itself is about 500Kb, but adds that it downloads about 10Mb of additional "Chrome-related data to work correctly."

Late last night I posted about the infamous "hey that's my wife advertising a singles site" screenshot that Cheryl Smith blog shared on her blog.

Hold the phone, says Facebook. That was an embedded ad in a third-party application. As AllAboutFacebook rightly points out, I got that part wrong:

The information used for the photos were scraped while accessing Facebook applications by a third-party ad network that most likely violated Facebook's terms of service. It's a serious problem and one that I've highlighted many times.

Facebook's David Swain has informed me that the uproar has led Facebook to disable two ad networks. He also took the time to offer some clarification:

These ads are not from Facebook but we are concerned about any potential threat to our users' experience. We recently had deceptive ads removed from a number of apps and prohibited two entire advertising networks from providing services to applications on Facebook Platform because they were not compliant with our policies and failed to correct their advertising practices.

We are continuing to investigate to make sure ads that violate our policies stay off Facebook and may take further action against developers who host the ads.[...]Any ads you currently see doing this are coming from third-party ad networks and are only running within the canvas page of an application, which is controlled by third party developers rather than Facebook.

Ok, so Facebook isn't directly responsible. However, it's still their platform that allows the third party app developers to access your photos.

While it might lessen the sting, I still find it a little offputting that a developer would be allowed to access content I upload in this way. It's clearly a situation that Facebook needs to sort out once and for all, or it's just going to cause more controversy later.

What do you think? Sound off in the comments!

I don't demand a heck of a lot from my browser anymore. I've weened myself from dependence on add-ons and plugins and moved to as many bookmarklets as possible so that I don't miss a beat when switching among the myriad of browsers installed on my system.

While I've been using Firefox for ages, I've been playing with Chromium for quite some time and become used to its speed. I downloaded Safari 4 when the final became available yesterday and was impressed.

Speed isn't the be-all and end-all for a browser, but it's pretty dang important. And yes, Firefox has gotten faster of late, but it's still not quite on par with the Webkit Wonder Twins (no, I couldn't have picked two superheros who sucked more while still having super powers - sorry Zan and Jayna).

Apart from its obvious speed improvements, how about Safari's ability to kill an unresponsive plugin (like Flash) on a page without the whole browser falling to pieces? I'll have that, please.

One other small detail that I was pleased to find was better support for the Windows 7 taskbar. Just like IE8, you'll get a hover thumbnail for every tab and window Safari currently has open. Download progress is indicated on the icons as well. It's not perfect - hovering a particular thumbnail only shows a blank page on all but your active tab, but it's better than all the other non-IE browsers have achieved so far.

Wait a minute. Did that seriously just happen while I was putting this post together?

I'd like to think Microsoft's new FixIt gadget is a good idea, but I'm just not sure yet. Here's why I'm having trouble reaching a decision one way or the other.

First, it's difficult for me to imagine a home user wanting this on their sidebar. If you're having so many problems with Vista that you need FixIt always at the ready, you'd probably just dump it and roll back to XP anyway.

Also, FixIt solutions are pretty easy to find on the website. That's probably a more logical way to fix things once in a while than taking up space and resources (albeit limited) with another gadget on the sidebar.

What about In a work environment? Sure, it'd be nice if this helped prevent a few support phone calls, but does that ever happen? All of my users are still going to call and do their best to get me to fix the issue for them.

I guess I'd at least have instant access to a few common repairs, but the problems I'm fixing usually aren't issues FixIt can assist with. Also, none of my machines are Vista - they're all XP Pro, so I can't install a gadget anyway.

So when would the gadget be useful? I honestly don't know. Maybe you guys can clear that up for me in the comments!

Sophos Labs' Graham Clulely authored a blog post today asking users for the best Conficker headline they've read. Pretty much all the major antivirus providers have announced that 1) most users are safe because the required Windows patch has been available since October via Windows Update and 2) there's a good chance nothing at all will happen tomorrow.

Since it's April 1st, though, let's have a little fun with this one. Here are a few I'd like to see. Submit yours in the comments!

Conficker turns into the world's biggest RickRoll

Hey, it goes off on April 1, so why couldn't it be a colossal prank? The original is kind of tired, though, so maybe Conficker might opt for something more like Interior Crocodile Alligator - which isn't at all horrible, so you should definitely click the link.

It's no secret that Internet Explorer has a history of thumbing its nose at web standards. IE8 is supposed to change all that, bringing improved (how could it not be?) compliance. An unfortunate side effect, however, is that some sites that have been designed to display properly in IE7 (or older) don't look so hot in the new version.

I particularly like one excerpt from the IEBlog: Site owners are *always* in control of their content. That's important to remember in case you were thinking the browser had something to do with why a site looks fine in Firefox, Chrome, or Opera but not IE.

How, then, to avoid these problems? Why, with the incompatibility list, of course! Sites added to it will automatically load in "compatibility view," thus providing the average user with a more hiccup-free browsing experience. Trouble is, the list is getting big. Stupid big.

ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reported that the list currently contains 2,400 sites that don't render properly in IE8. Even better is the fact that the list includes some pretty major sites, like Yahoo! and Google. Google? How does a web browser not render Google correctly?

What do you make of the list? What does it say about the state of Internet Explorer and web standards?

Topical addon: The Register has published a post about Norwegian websites banding together to urge users to upgrade from IE6 to a "more compatible" browser so they don't have to hack up their code.

WinSuperSite was talking about an interesting feature in Windows 7 the other day. Apparently you can drag files to an application pinned to your taskbar to associate it with that program. At least, that's what some other users have said.

I gave it a try, and met with no success.

I tried with PNG and JPEG images, but dragging them to FastStone MaxView didn't do anything - the file just scooted to the side and pinned itself to the taskbar. I tried ISO files and ImgBurn. Same result. I tried ZIP files and 7-Zip. No dice.

If you're running Windows 7, does it work for you? If it's limited to certain applications, I'm not convinced how useful a feature it is. If I'm missing something, please tell me.

And one further question: with so many people running the beta, is it time for Microsoft to publicize a detailed list of features like this in Windows 7, or is it better for testers to keep stumbling onto them on our own?

I need some help with this one. I don't understand why people get so excited about sub-30 second boot times in Windows 7, or with Vista's apparently horrid slowness.

See, I never shut my machine off. I close the lid, it goes to sleep. I open the lid, it resumes in a few short seconds. Windows 7 is especially quick, but Vista was fast, too. Unless I'm toying with an OS that can't pull off the go-to-sleep-and-wake-up trick (several Linux distros, I'm talking to you) I just don't need to power down that often.

My desktop computer at work is the same. When I leave it idle, it suspends. I bang on the space bar and up it comes - and in fewer than 15 seconds. Yes, sometimes a shutdown can't be avoided, but those occasions have been few and far between for me. Am I alone in this?

I wouldn't think so. A friend of mine hasn't rebooted his Linux-based media server in more than a year. It may take a full minute to boot, but I doubt he'd care if it can run for 365 days straight from then on.

Don't get me wrong. I love building systems with Raptors and watching them tear through the startup process. I understand that the amount of time an OS takes to boot says something about how it's been put together. It just seems to me that there are dozens of other things that are more important to compare when looking at the different systems.

What do you think? Do you shut your computer completely off that often? Is a half minute too long to wait for it to power back on?

There are many ways to keep a diary or journal. You can use pen and paper like people have been doing for centuries. Or you can open a Word or TXT document and just start writing. But sometimes it's nice to have an application that's actually designed for the task, and which will separate your journal entries by date, let you search your diary for specific keywords, and offer some form of encryption to keep your nosy siblings from reading what you've written.

The problem with most free diary applications I've tried is that they don't do a great job of exporting your data in a standard format that you can know with confidence you'll be able to access 10 years from now.

For a while I used Journal Pro for Windows Mobile to keep track of my thoughts. But the company discontinued work on the project. And while that means the Windows Mobile and desktop versions of Journal Pro are now available as free downloads, it also means that if you want to convert your journal to a text document you need to do it with the Windows Mobile client. The desktop version doesn't have a text export feature. So if you replace your Windows Mobile device with a Palm, Symbian, Android, or Apple device you may never be able to read your journal entries again.

The other day I ran across LifeSaver, which attempts to get around this problem by allowing you to export your journal as an XML file. But the project is still in its early phases. I also tried Advanced Diary, which has an attractive interface and allows users to export entries as text files - but at least in the last freeware version of the application, Advanced Diary exports each journal entry as a separate text, HTML, or RTF file which can create a ton of individual files.

So I'm turning to the wisdom of the crowds here. Do you keep a diary? What apps or techniques do you use to keep your entries straight and to make sure your journal is future proof? Let us know in the ocmments.

We received a question from one of our readers the other day asking about an easy way to resize his 500GB data drive to make room for a Windows 7 install. This got me thinking about two tools that I've been using a lot lately: Easeus Partition Manager and Macrium Reflect.

If you play with a lot of operating systems, keeping a good set of images (or a stockpile of extra hard drives) around is a must. Reflect is incredibly fast and the free version should provide all the functionality most home or enthusiast users need. If not, the full version is only $40 anyway, and well worth it.

Reflect also works right in Windows, which makes imaging drives a task that users of any skill level can easily handle. People I tell to grab the free version sometimes have trouble finding the download page: it's right here.

A lot of you read yesterday's post about the school teacher who cautioned us that spreading the "misconception of free software" is harmful. Today we're going to put a positive spin on things.

Free software does exist. Every retail customer that I've built a computer for in the past six years has at least three pieces of free or Open Source software on his or her system. It's everywhere, and we're all using it - even Karen, whether she realizes it or not.

So now it's time for "Sharin' with Karen." Which of your favorite free applications would you like her (and others like her) to know about and use? They might be well known - like Firefox or OpenOffice - or they might be relative unknowns - like Network Notepad.

Let's keep things positive - after all, we're talking about software that someone else is sharing with you!

Post your picks, and I'll put together a roundup for the weekend.

Maybe we'll help change some minds!

While most people probably don't care what Microsoft does to patch or improve Windows Vista any more, Service Pack 2 is now available to Technet and MSDN subscribers and is slated for public release on December 4th.

Could SP2 actually take care of some of the irritations that have plagued other Vista users? Perhaps more importantly, does anyone really care? Vista has been taking such a beating in the media that it seems as though no one will. Prevailing sentiment seems to be that Vista should be ignored and left to die while development on Windows 7 continues.

While enhancements like Windows Search 4.0, native Blu-Ray media burning, improved wireless, and Bluetooth 2.1 support are great, I've yet to see any perception-altering features mentioned.

Personally, I've never hated Vista, and I've been able to work through or disable any of the annoyances I've encoutered (like UAC). I recently installed Ultimate x64 and I've been enjoying quite a bit. Photoshop CS4 runs like a dream, and Eset recently released a beta of my favorite internet security suite.

My Vista install is running just fine right now, but if SP2 can tweak my system's performance or squeeze a few more minutes of battery life out of my laptop, then I'm all for it.

What are your thoughts? Do you think Vista SP2 will do anything to really improve the OS, or does it stink of a last-ditch effort to "salvage" the experiment?