Stuff You May Not Know About Chrome
Well, first I must get something off my chest – no not EB – something else. Google has zillions of dollars and they pay people astronomical salaries because most of them have big-time degrees from M.I.T. and places like that, which generates, within them, a powerful sense of entitlement and snobbishness. For be it for us lesser folk to understand the nuances of being well-educated, stylish geeks, making millions of dollars a year just by typing funny looking symbols into weird calculators or making algorithms that will eventually lead to real artificial intelligence which will end up being the downfall of the world. So, it’s not the evil doers who will bring down civilization, it will be those beady-eyed zillionaires whose algorithms and unfathomable calculations will inevitably end life on Earth as we know it. Robbie don’t you have some kind of built-in circuit that prevents you from killing people like me. Don’t do it, Robbie. Don’t waste you energy. The people reading this will do it for you.
Anyway… You have to ask yourself – why in the world would they give a browser a really stupid name like Chrome? Why not Google Explorer or Bart (as in Maverick) or Google Gnasher, or Google Gaggle, or Google Gavignator or Google Crocodile or Google Panther. Google Panther – now there’s a name that screams speed as well as carnivorousness. Google Chrome sounds like a 1956 Ford. Polish that chrome, Cecil!
Anyway, what we normally refer to as an address bar is called the Omnibox in Chrome. THE Omnibox, not just any old omnibox. And the Omnibox does much more than server as a repository for pasting in URLs or doing searches.
Did you know you can type in “How many liters in a gallon” or “How many inches in a meter” (no quotes) and get an answer in less than a second? Did you know you can slap a UPS or FEDEX tracking code in the Omnibox and track your packages? Did you know you can use the Omnibox as a calculator – like 1967*29764 = 58545788? You can divide, subtract, be fruitful and multiply and other stuff like finding the square root of 137 (which just so happens to be 11.7046999107). And when you do math stuff in the Omnibox the answer will appear in a calculator-like thingie, see?
And if you know what the stuff is on the left like tan, sin, cos, log, etc. have a ball – I haven’t a clue. Needless to say NASA isn’t going to hire me to plot a vector to the rings of Uranus. What, me worry?
You can get weather for any major city in the world, like let’s say Copenhagen Type in “weather Copenhagen” without the quotes, and you’ll immediately get this:
If you’re feeling like lighting up a Camel (WARNING! Cigarette smoking is hazardous to your health.) you could type in “Weather Abu Dhabi” – without the quotes and get:
Oh yes, you can get flight information including times and gate assignments, just by typing the flight number into the Omnibox:
T
To get all that info above all I did was type UA733 in the Omnibox and pressed Enter. And I don’t want to be biased or ethnocentric, no sirree, not me – you can find non-American flights too.
To get the info above I just typed BA487 in the old Omnibox and pressed Enter.
Are you thinking about having EB come for a visit? Don’t know how to make her favorite drink – the martini? No problem. Type Recipe Martini in the Omnibox and you’ll avoid a harsh scolding from EB. See?
You can get driving directions, airline schedules, recipes, weather, make meters into feet and feet into meters; make cups into milliliters and other stuff like that, Needless to say, the Omnibox is a power tool for those of you who have forgiven Google for the crummy name Chrome and use it for it’s features; for its features are many, I tells ya!
Oh and if all that’s not enough to whet your appetite for a little Chrome, here’s some shortcuts for you my friends:
Ctrl + 1-8 = Pressing Ctrl and any number 1 through 8 will move to the corresponding tab in your tab bar.
Ctrl + 9 = Switch to the last tab.
Ctrl + H = Show Chrome history
Ctrl + J = Open your Downloads folder
Ctrl + K = Move the cursor to the Omnibox (or Address bar)
Ctrl + T = Open a new tab
Cool!
I discovered most of those features awhile back. A friend will as the question “how do I…” or “how do I fix…”. I just type their queries in the search (usually on a new tab), I can give them an answer in no time flat. I also use it to find recipes. Now that’s cool and quick.
I use Chrome all the time on my cell phone, since it’s the default browser. As a result, I’ve started using Chrome more on my computer. I tried a couple of your examples above and then a few of my own, and agree with Deanna that Chrome is cool!
Gee Whiz, so many neat things you can do so easily and quickly in Chrome. So why can’t Google put the dropdown of multiple addresses back in their gmail program?
Not sure what you mean – you can get a drop down of all contacts or the 20 most often contacted people in your contacts list. I’m nos sure if you meant contacts or not.
Weather Australia, hot 28 deg.F , definitely not cool!
Watch out calling up flight info. NSA will think you’re terrorists, and according to James Bond martinis are shaken, not stirred.
Those who know, know that Google Chrome is a fork of the Open Source Browser, Chromium. Google, just added its own spin.
Chromium an open source project owned by Google.
Now, if Chrome could just figure out how to save an email and any attachments. I had to go back to another browser because Chrome couldn’t do the job I needed.
Chrome is a browser, not an email program. Gmail saves attachments and emails very well – but Gmail, other than the fact it’s owned by Google, has nothing to do with Chrome. You can access Gmail from most browsers including Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer.
I tried Chrome and went back to FireFox because Chrome would not work with the FarmVille Two game (or vise versus). Anyway, would have tried to use it as my default browser had it not been for that.
Not sure what was wrong with your Chrome installation; Farmville (all versions) work perfectly with Chrome.
Is there a difference between the Chrome browser and just plain ole’ ordinary Google? Can’t Google do the jobs that are described in the article?
Microsoft Internet Explorer is to Microsoft as Google Chrome is to Google. The article was not about Google, it was about Google Chrome. I don’t know what other browsers offer in the way of information from the address bar. I suppose if you really don’t like Google Chrome you could use go to http://www.google.com and get the same answers but that wasn’t the point of the article.