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There's a new web browser entering the "market.”

Okay, so it's not so much a new browser since it's just a modified FireFox, but it throws in some great plusses. It's called Flock and it's coming to you soon.

First, we'll straight-up compare it to other browsers, including FireFox. FireFox is byfar the best web browser I've ever used — until Flock. The initial loading of the app is ALWAYS quick, much quicker than memory-hog FireFox. In addition, the rendering of web sites seems much quicker than in any other browser, which is odd since it's using the FireFox rendering engine.

Now, we'll get to the good parts.

I use my iBook at work and a PC at home. I often bookmark sites at work and want to access them at home. My iBook doesn't have WiFi, so I need to look at my iBook and re-type the (often lengthy) URL on my PC. There exists a website called del.icio.us that allows you store your bookmarks and share them with the world. Flock integrates your del.icio.us account into your local bookmarks, that is, if I bookmark a site at work, when I open Flock at home, the bookmark is automatically on my PC at home. What's even better is that since it's on del.icio.us, I can access it from ANY webbrowser from any computer anywhere in the world.

Another cool feature is incorporating blogging. See a site that sparks your creativity? Click the blog button and a composer opens right up allowing you to blog straight from Flock. (I need to make Frisbee, the underlying structure of Frobba.com and Rate-Everything.com, standards-compliant so that I can blog from Flock.)

In addition, Flock incorporates phoosharing website Flickr into the mix. Enable the Flickr TopBar and a photostrip appears above the rendering area and you can view any user's photos.

There are some bugs that need to be worked out, but that's to be expected as it's only a developer preview (It's only at version 0.5pre). It should be widely released in the coming months after all the kinks are worked out.

My biggest gripe is that even though the damn thing is based off of FireFox, I couldn't import my favorites from any browser other than Internet Explorer on my PC and only Opera, Safari, and IE on my Mac. Go figure.

Only a handfull of FireFox extensions work in Flock, but with some minor hacking, you can port (most of) your FireFox extensions to Flock, which made me happy since I can't live without my FoxyTunes extension.

To update an extension to work with Flock, download the extension's install package (it's a .xpi file) from the extension's homepage or from update.mozilla.org. Once downloaded, open up the xpi file in WinZIP or WinRAR. I used WinRAR. You'll see a file in there called install.rdf. Extract install.rdf and open it with a text editor, like Notepad or Metapad. You'll see a section like this:

<em:targetApplication>
<Description>
<em:id>{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}</em:id>
<em:minVersion>0.8</em:minVersion>
<em:maxVersion>1.4</em:maxVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>


Under that section, copy and paste this bit of XML:

<em:targetApplication>
<Description>
<em:id>{a463f10c-3994-11da-9945-000d60ca027b}</em:id>
<em:maxVersion>1.0+</em:maxVersion>
<em:minVersion>1.0+</em:minVersion>
</Description>
</em:targetApplication>


and then save install.rdf. Now, find your edited install.rdf file in Explorer and drag it into WinRAR or WinZIP to overwrite the old install.rdf in the XPI file. Once you've modified the install.rdf file and injected it into the install package, drag the XPI file into Flock and it should work its magic as if it were a regular ol' extension in FireFox.

A few extensions wouldn't work (undotabclose), some worked mostly but glitched sometimes (FoxyTunes won't let you reposition itself), and some work flawlessly (Milewide Back Button). I'm the authors will port them as Flock becomes more widespread.

EDIT: I wrote a small app to do it for you. Check it out here .


****

Cell Phones.

During my conversation with Calie tonight, the call was dropped roughly 8 times, some as quickly as 30 seconds after the last drop.

My phone can play MIDI, polyphonic, and MP3 ringtones. It can record voice messages. It can take pictures. It can surf the web, instant message, and send and receive e-mail. Calie's can take digital movies. The new Motorola ROKR has iTunes built in for MP3 playback. My boss' is a Palm Pilot too.

You'd think that if they could take all this time and money to research what usesless new feature our phones "need" that they could either build more towers or make a phone that doesn't suck?

Cell phones do everything except place phone calls. I have an iPod. I don't need MP3 playback. I'm happy with a ringtone that actually rings. I have a laptop and a PC if I need to communicate digitally, or, you know, call them on the phone I'm using to instant message them. I have a $150 digital camera for digital images. I don't even own a real video camera, let alone the need for one on my phone. I want a cell phone that constantly has 4 or 5 signal bars and never drops a call.

I miss payphones.

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