I removed the old Google Desktop from my system and installed the new one. It won't go into effect until a fresh reboot, but I'm surprised at how much GD was slowing down my system! Of course, it makes claims to the contrary, but I was wondering why some operations seemed so slow?for example, conducting Google queries. I've read around the web that the interstitial task of integrating web and desktop search results had something to do with that. And despite the fact that GD is supposed to only index during idle times, I felt slowdowns tug me at other moments and I don't think it was merely psychological. So, I'm very disappointed by that, and I hope GD2 is better because it does look much slicker.

I run as many web browsers I can find. Shame I need IE for the ActiveX stuff, otherwise I'd be more content to open up to Firefox (which displays some elements oddly against my wishes), and Opera feels very snappy and some of the skins have a cool Euromicrobrowser feel but with its puritan approach to web standards, doesn't support HTMLAREAs like the one I'm clacking away in now! Arrr! So I just have the worlds fragmented.

Primary browser for me is Maxthon, which I've adopted over Avant Browser. I colored the skin (took a long time) to look more like Firefox's Charamel (aka "beautiful genius skin!"), altho it comes nowhere near in terms of character. Tabbed browsing is a must for my multitasking needs. It's enough to make Hal Douglas say, "In a world!" In Maxthon, I often pull up multiple sets, automate things, close them all back up with single clicks. A bit sluggish because of the interlying IE and I wish it had fullblown Gecko support… still wishing here!

Maybe I should go upgrade my skin… ack, site down.