Although it is still an alpha version it already allows you to perform the regular navigation activities that you are used to with an incredible speed.

It’s layout is also a bit different of what we are used to, in my opinion it is great, KISS principle all the way.  I also like the new functionalities like the task manager which allows you to take control over the used memory with each tab/window and the browser itself.

With all this in mind I expect a great browser to arise from Google in the next months. Below are the steps that I needed to perform to install Chromium on Xubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid).

First of all you need to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list file:

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines at the bottom of the file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Now save/close the file and add the GPG key using the following command:

--rev-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xfbef0d696de1c72ba5a835fe5a9bf3bb4e5e17b5

Next we will update the source list and install the browser:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

If you want you can also enable flash support by copying (or linking) your previously installed flash library into browser plugins directory:

$ sudo cp /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/chromium-browser/plugins

And you are done, next time you run it you will only need to specify the plugins usage with following command:

$ chromium-browser --enable-plugins

For a couple of weeks I’ve been reading some articles about Google Android, the new operating system for mobile devices from Google.

And I must say that I’m very curious about it. Android seems a nice alternative to iPhone which seems to be having a couple of problems with App Store and their rejection politics.

Currently there are already some devices powered by Android for sale in Portugal and as expected the prices charged by operators are quite high, which does not always allows you to purchase them easily.

If you are very curious about it but you are unable to acquire such a device in the near future or you just want to take a peek before buying it, there is an alternative that allows you to do that with no cost.

I am talking about the Live Android, a version for x86 architectures. You can download a LiveCD disc image of the Google Android operating system and burn the image to a disc, stick it in a CD-ROM drive, reboot your computer and you can check out Android without installing it or affecting any files on your PC.

You can also use the disc image in a virtualization application like VirtualBox, VMWare or Microsoft Virtual PC if you want to try the operating system without even rebooting your computer.

If you want to keep in touch with Android latest news or you just need some help while developing an application for it, you may want to take a look at the Portuguese community of Android.