As part of a training session at work, we were shown a fun tool called Wordle that allows you to parse a set of textual data and create a word-based map based upon the frequency of the words. This concept is already used extensively on blog sites based upon the frequency of used tags.

I thought it would be fun to take a chunk of my latest posts to see what I’ve been going on about the most. Unsurprisingly, installing Linux on my laptop and my continually-growing contempt for IE6 seem to be particularly highlighted.

• Fair enough I guess… It wasn’t a suspiciously thick ‘roll of carpet’ that they were storing was it? #
• Wow… Michael Schumacher is revealed as “The Stig”. Speaking as a thoroughbred geek, I can honestly say, “I don’t give a monkey’s”. #
• I don’t feel too good today. It’s a good thing I’ve not cuddled any pigs or I’d be worried. #
• Sat in the back of a Corsa heading to a meeting. There is NO way that a Corsa seats three adults in the back! #
• Glad to say that we’re finally here… none of us are looking forward to the return journey. #
• I’m bored of assembling files to create a slipstreamed XP bootable USB stick. #
• Trying out a new NetBook OS called Moblin. It’s only in beta atm but it seems really really nice! ^^ #
• Hmm… really nice slick environment. Feels nice to use but it’s not too stable at the moment. I think I’ll try Linpus. When they sort o … #
• It was nice watching a film with my sweetie last night. It’s a shame the film was Snakes on a Plane. That’s two hours I’ll never get back. #
• I’ve finally settled on Eeebuntu. Everything works great and I’ve customised it to suit me (and got rid of the awful boot screen). Hooray! #
• Weird… I wanted to forward myself an email with a 4Mb attachment over my wireless network but each time I tried, my BT Homehub rebooted. #
• Wow… just yesterday I posted about a problem I had with my BT Homehub and they tweeted me with an offer to help… cool customer service. #
• It’s time for a new project… I’m going to throw together a home MP3 Jukebox that we can control over the LAN using Linux (of course). #
• Just had a really lovely walk with K. It’s a lovely summer evening. Feels like the first one this year. -.- #
• I love MythBusters. They busted the myth about Daddy Longlegs spiders being the most venomous in the world. Their venom isn’t bad at all. #

• I’m going to try and install IE on my Linux laptop tonight… and maybe (if I’m brave) MS Office too. ^^ (Apparently my licenses allows … #
• Installing MS Office on Wine was an epic fail. Apparently the recent versions of Wine broke something that used to allow Office to work. #
• Holy crap! The rain is coming down like some kind of crazy monsoon! And it’s got great big hailstones in it too… and it’s JUNE! O_o #
• Just added myself to the http://wefollow.com twitter directory under: #web #programmer #geek #
• I was reading the UK government’s white paper about “Digital Britain” today… http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/broadcasting/6216.aspx #
• I’m wondering if I should do some work or play WoW… work is tempting me with its webby goodness but I feel the need to chill. #
• Note to self: Take a look at Twitpic today so I can start adding piccies to my tweets. #
• Just removed Tweetdeck after my Firewall revealed some very suspicious registry accesses. I like Twhirl anyway. I wish I wasn’t so tired. #
• I’m on my Windows XP machine and all I can think of is how lovely my KDE desktop is to use on my laptop… wow, I’m turning all Linuxy. #

I’ve been investigating AJAX frameworks recently and I came across an interesting speed comparison test on MooTools’ site.

It does a number of tests by applying MooTools, JQuery, Prototype, YUI and Dojo to an HTML document and reports the total times of each library at the end.

Just out of curiosity I applied the test using Firefox 3 and IE6 (my employer’s browser of choice).

Take a look at the results:

The difference in the times is staggering! Firefox out-performs by at least 200% (and way more for some of the frameworks).

Here’s the kicker

Because many companies continue to use IE6 as their corporate browser (largely because their standard disk images use the default browser that comes with XP SP1) serious web developers are forced support IE6 to at least a minimal degree.

I don’t like IE6 - for personal projects such as this site, my support for IE6 really is a token gesture (but I still endeavour to make the site visible in IE6). Sadly for commercial projects when as wider range of browsers need to be supported to keep a client happy, a web-developer ignores IE6 at their peril.

Even the edit window in Wordpress doesn’t resize gracefully in IE6. Half of what I’m editing is hiddent behind other div containers and I don’t blame Wordpress for that. IE6 stinks.

According to W3School’s browser usage statistics, 14% of their visitors were using IE6 in May 2009. IE6 is like a bad cough that just won’t go away and I blame narrow-minded and lazy IT departments for its perpetuation. Get with the times, you Luddites.

My old laptop has been showing its age recently (or so I thought). Every thing I tried to do in Windows XP seemed to take forever - especially once I started to use multiple applications. As a result, I’ve not used it for a while.

I recently wiped the whole thing by using the factory restore DVDs that come with the laptop but that installed so much Sony bloatware that it didn’t really feel any faster at all. Just a whole lot emptier! ^^

I’ve been thinking of trying to use Linux for a while but the one thing that’s put me off is the fact that there are some Windows applications that I still have a need for (and a couple of games). It was a few months back when my interest was re-kindled by Haz’s laptop running Linux. He showed me that he’d got some windows applications running natively on the laptop by using Wine and it actually seemed to work!

So… I’ve downloaded the latest distro of Kubuntu (I prefer the KDE environment) and I’ve installed it on my laptop. I even destroyed the hidden restore partition on the HDD to make more space. I’ve downloaded packages useful to me (networking just works without any hassle at all) and I’ve installed Wine.

The result is amazing - it feels like I have a new laptop again. The speed is amazing, I can switch between various running applications with ease and I LOVE the 3D task selection view. I’ve fallen in love with my old laptop again because it works as it’s supposed to.

Now I’m just trying to install the Windows applications that I need. I installed Internet Explorer 6 earlier and that runs without any problems at all. Fun, fun, fun!