How To View How Much Memory Each Google Chrome Tab is Taking

The good and bad thing about Google Chrome is that it separates each tab in the browser as a separate process in Windows. This is great for isolating crashes which can bring down a tab without losing the rest of the open tabs, but looking at the task manager, you can’t really tell which tab is using all the memory as below:

There is a relatively easy way to find out memory usage of Chrome within your browser. In order to view this, follow the steps below:

Step 1

Go to a New Tab in Chrome

Step 2

Type the following in the URL bar and hit enter:  about:memory

You will see the following window:

Here you can see cool things like:

• How much memory each running browser is taking on your machine (this includes that IE browser that you need for software that absolutely needs it).
• How much memory each Chrome tab is taking
• How much memory each plugin and extension is taking.

It also differentiates between physical and virtual memory

Now isn’t that awesome?

Step 3 (optional)

I actually added this “page” as a bookmark in Chrome to put on my bookmarks bar, so that I can see the memory usage via a single click.

Note

You can also get to this page by going to the Chrome Task Manager (hit Shift-Escape while in Chrome) and clicking the funky looking “stats for nerds” link at the bottom of the resulting window.

Comment below if you like and want more of these quick tips! Until then, I’m outta here!

Google Adds Device Compatibility on its Android Market

This was a pleasant surprise for me for sure. In addition to allowing users to remotely deploy applications directly from the website, Google has now included functionality to do a device compatibility check against registered devices.

I have an Asus Transformer Tablet in addition to my Samsung Galaxy phone registered and going into any application, you can now see which device the application will work on.

The market shows all applications regardless of device compatibility, so usually the only time you used to know if an application will work would be when you try and install it. Now, this message would save the users some time as well as looking very cool indeed!

How to Add a Custom Background to Google (like Bing)

The main search page for Google has always tried to have a minimalistic design. However, recently, Google seems to have taken a page out of Bing’s playbook and now offers a way for users to customise the background of their Google main search page.

In order to make best use of this, you need to be logged into your Gmail/Google account.

Once logged in, there is an option on the bottom left hand corner of the screen to “Change Background Image”.

This allows the user to change the background with a picture from their Picasa Web Albums, or uploaded from their computer or from a public gallery.

In order to use your own pictures, the minimum image size is 800×600. The image is scaled as the window is resized.

The results are still displayed against a white background. It is a bit flaky and doesn’t “feel” like Google. But hey, if anyone wants to, here is it :)

New Version of Google Chrome out

For those who may not know, Google Chrome is Google’s version of a web browser. Currently the market is dominated by clients such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.

Chrome is Googles’ attempt to create a light and fast browser first released around 6 months ago.

While its still a relatively new application and subject to little quirks, I’ve very quickly made it my primary browser in terms of general use :)

Note: The latest version of Chrome may not play nice with Windows 7 (read: slow), so please be aware of that if you are interested in installing the latest version and you are running Windows 7 beta.

We will write up a quick article on how to download, install and configure Google Chrome soon, but for now, here is the news item regarding its latest version:

From Reuters (Mar 18):

Google released a new version of its Chrome Web browser on Tuesday, as the search giant continues its efforts to get a foothold in a market dominated by Microsoft Corp.

How to Connect to your Home Machine via Gbridge

There are many reasons to connect to your home pc while you are at work. And there are many methods. As a lot of people have Windows Vista or XP at home, methods such are Remote Desktop Connections may work well, but can require fiddling with firewalls, and configuration knowledge that most of us technology newbies may not know much about.

Connecting via RDP (Remote Desktop) also “takes over” the PC at home so its not suitable for desktop sharing (ie, there is someone at home looking at what you are doing). The PC is effectively “locked out” while you are connected remotely to it. This is frequently the case when my wife needs a little help in doing something and I just can’t talk her through on the phone.

This is also valuable when “assisting” people such as parents or grandparents. Have you tried talking your grandparents through setting up their email application at home? If you have, then you may understand the pain heh.

So what is GBridge? Its an application that sits on both your work pc and home pc and allows you to remotely control one or the other. It has many other uses such as file sharing etc, but the purpose of this article is to detail out how to get the remote desktop sharing working. You can go here for additional information about its functions if you are interested.

Anyway, lets begin.

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