I’ve been using Gmail for a pretty long time now.  And over the years I’ve accumulated several random gmail addresses (palmerforpresident@gmail.com; eric.vanbergen@gmail.com; vanberge@gmail.com, vanberge@comcast.net, etc.)

So today I finally took a much needed step to combine all those accounts into my main Gmail account.  First, I set every one of my other gmail addresses to simply forward to vanberge@gmail.com (and to delete the original copy).  Then, I used Gmail’s “Send email as” feature to allow me to send email from any of my email addresses from my main account.

Now I can stop managing all these random Gmail accounts I’ve created over the years.   A small step that I should have taken quite awhile ago, but later is better than never I guess.

While I am not the biggest fan of the name, I am completely sold on Google’s new web browser: Chrome.

I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this sooner, But this morning on FOX17’s morning show I heard “Google is planning to launch a new internet browser… etc.”  And that it was launching TODAY.  How could I have missed that?  How could I not have heard about this?   It was a pretty nice surprise today because I really like Google’s products across the board.  Reader, Calendar, Gmail, Docs, Sync, Browser Sync (formerly), Analytics, Adsense, Maps – The list just goes on and on.   Add to the list, Chrome.

I seriously downloaded this browser the minute that the download page worked (it had redirected to google’s default search homepage) and I instantly installed and began using Chrome at work on my Windows Vista workstation.  

My first impressions are as follows:
The browser has the best layout that I have ever seen in a web browser.  The tabs are placed above the address bar and there is almost no wasted space for the controls.  When the browser is maximized, I almost feel like it’s missing completely, in a good way – The browser itself becomes secondary, to the point where the web content is the only focus.  I caught myself saying “oh, yea…  I’m using a browser’

The bookmarks/favorites functionality is pretty basic and does leave a little bit to be desired. But hopefully future enhancements will include automatic syncing with my google bookmarks.

It’s pretty easy to tell that much of the browsing and plugin engine components are the same as firefox.  Installing a flash plugin really reminded me of the same process that firefox uses.  Not a bad thing by any means.

The configuration and options are fairly vanilla – there’s not alot you can customize or change using this browser.  But, at the same time i don’t find myself wanting to make any changes.  It’s a simple, clean, easy to use web browser that runs very efficiently, is very light weight, and allows you to control each browser related process running inside it.

Overall, I’m very impressed so far with just an hour or so of usage.  I’m pretty sure this browser will be pulling market share pretty significantly in the coming months.  Google is really in a pretty good spot to dent Microsoft hard.  If i were google, i’d be putting a ton of resources into making a lightweight, web-focused operating system.  With the reputation Google has built up, and the quality of the products they have put out continuously, releasing an OS would completely shake up the tech industry at the consumer level.

Keep up the good work Google!