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Wired.com has an extensive write-up on the people and reasoning behind Google Chrome. It’s an interesting read, and helps put the whole venture in context.

Google’s answer to the question no-one asked landed today with the launch of their Chrome web-browser. And it’s actually quite good. It’s light, very fast, very easy to use, and does have some features to love.

Getting the most attention is V8, a new JavaScript interpreter Google engineered from the ground up for raw speed. It’s noticeable too, pages with a lot of client-side code are demonstrably faster than in Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Other distinctions include a very tidy interface that looks great on Windows Vista (Chrome is also available on XP; Mac and Linux users will have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the beta) and a nice model wherein each tab operates within it’s own process; if the tab content is slow or crashes, the rest of the browser remains unaffected. It even includes a task manager to view the memory and cpu usage of all active tab and plugin processes (in fact, if you have other browsers open, it will include their resource information along side Chrome’s).

It’s not perfect, and is clearly still in beta. While stable, many killer features are still missing, like bookmark management, RSS feed integration and a proper plugin model. Also, the lack of a dedicated search box is really annoying for longtime Firefox users, although this concern may fade with extended exposure (Chrome’s navigation bar doubles as a search box, using keywords and shortcuts to choose a search provider). On the other hand, it does automatically add search engines to it’s collection when you use them (go to amazon.com, and moments later amazon search is listed in your search engine providers).

Overall, Chrome is a very promising entry into the competitive browser market, and while obviously an early product missing some important features, it is stable and usable for those who don’t require some of the complexities associated with Firefox.

This Tuesday, the 17th of June, Firefox 3 will finally come out of beta. Just so you know.

Ireland doesn’t have zip codes (per se: Dublin has postal codes, but they’re not strictly analogous to zip codes). Almost all the time, this is not a problem. Ireland is small enough to get by without needing such a system, and so has avoided introducing one so far.

This is going to change; Eamon Ryan plans to introduce an national postal code system by 2009 (whether on not this is actually going to happen is debatable; proposed changes on this subject have died before).

But in the meantime, Irishmen continually have to suffer the regular annoyance of being prompted constantly for out not-existent zip code. Usually, it’s not so bad; entering a random string generally gets you by. Other sites, in the name of rock-solid input validation, check the validity of said entry and reject any code deemed non-existent.

Now, normally I applaud thorough input validation (I especially like it when sites check the top level domain of an email-address to ensure its existence); but if you’re going to insist on a valid zip code, it’s important to understand that postal coding is not a universal policy.

IGN and Google have mapped Liberty City, featured in the just-released GTA4. Places of interested are already cropping up, thanks to the community. This is just another reason in the list of many testifying to the sheer brilliance of Google Maps.