Intel - Leap Ahead

So... what about the new logo? Cool?
But what really matters at the end of the day is will Intel "leap ahead"... and by how far? (further than AMD?)

Intel to unveil new branding strategy

Luck is in the air

Imagine walking into an Apple store... and paying a small price for a "lucky bag". And opening it to find out that you have gotten...
* Airport Extreme base station
* Keynote
* .Mac account
* wireless keyboard behind it,
* wireless mouse
* D-Link Bluetooth adapter
* iLife '04
* 10%-off card

Cool? This is exactly what is happening in Japan according to ThinkSecret.

This New Year's, Apple is advertising its event with an aggressive branding campaign at its six Japanese stores. An observer noted yesterday that all the employees at Apple's Ginza store were wearing maroon t-shirts reading "Luck is in the air" bearing a picture of headphones floating away from an iPod. (that picture above)

Check out the Apple Japan website (translation)!

Bush

Bush - Forever a favourite topic of the American media.
(This video clip is very funny)

Semantic Web

I was reading Newsweek Special Edition when I came across the term "Semantic Web". Apparently, it is a new project founded by Tim Berners-Lee. Let us look at some quotes to get an idea...

"If HTML and the Web made all the online documents look like one huge book, RDF, schema, and inference languages will make all the data in the world look like one huge database."
-- Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, 1999

"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation."
-- Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, Scientific American, May 2001

Read more:
W3C Semantic Web
SemanticWeb.org
Wikipedia - Semantic Web

Also, if possible, grab a copy of Newsweek Special Edition. It includes essays by King Abdullah II, British PM Tony Blair, Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong, Eric Schmidt of Google, an interview with Tim Berners-Lee and of course, Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek.


Technorati: Semantic Web, Semantic-Web

CuteOverload.com

I have been looking at Alexa's Movers and Shakers (i.e. top 10 sites moving up and down in the traffic rankings) and I noticed that CuteOverload.com is one of them. I agree its a really cute site with cute pictures of animals [hamsters, kittens] (of all things!) They claim those are pictures that are "worth your internet browsing time" For one thing, the photos are certainly "cute". And its a blog!

It a typical case in point on how webpage popularity spreads. The webonomics of this: A blog is more easily found on Google, then lets say getting everyone to upload their "cute" photos to Flickr and tagging them via a unique name. [think Search Engine Optimisation & PageRank] (Note: someone decided to get everyone tag photos on Singapore to make a short film using the tag onesingaporeminute. The result is that some of the photos are non sequitur) Moreover, the photos go through a person (or persons) who takes on the job of "quality control." So the end-product? A cute webpage with cute quality photos.


Note: the webonomics article I hyperlinked above was written in 1996 (so its not so creadible now). I just conjured this word out of midair. Afterall, if there is Freakonomics, surely we are creative enough to join any word to economics.

Must Read and See

Its Christmas... so stay at home and do some meaningful reading.

1. Best of GigaOm (Om Malik's broadband blog - top 20 posts out of 5000 posts [get the PDF])
2. Scott Gatz's Syndicate 2005 Presentation on RSS (Scott Gatz is Yahoo!’s Senior Director of Personalization Products [get the PDF])

Well... we also decided that reading can be boring... so must see!

Google's first tv ad


Baidu vs. Google


Funny Microsoft Ad


Microsoft History (LOL - includes a live typical example of how win 98 crashes during a demo with Gate)

Bloop

Share files for free with no limits [including music, videos, pictures, anything].
www.bloop.com

www.ajchat.com is UP!

Great news... www.ajchat.com is up again!

Feed Digest Anyone?

You can insert feeds into your site with Feed Digest.

Add all kinds of RSS or Atom feeds and combine them into a "Digest" like the one you see above which you can insert into your own blog or website! Interface is user-friendly and you can create your own digest in minutes.

Firefox Stability Problems - Have you seen them?

• Firefox's use of physical and virtual memory is exceptionally high.
• CPU usage spikes to 100 percent (usually while loading a Web page).
• The browser freezes up for seconds, minutes, or permanently.
• The browser won't launch until they remove an errant "firefox.exe" process in Task Manager.
• The browser crashes suddenly (usually while loading a Web page).
• The browser has trouble loading specific pages, but there's no commonality among users as to which pages won't load.
• The initial launch of Firefox loads slower.
• Third-party application hyperlinks (such as a link in an e-mail message) take a long time to open a new Firefox tab or to launch the browser.

More here

The Power of Venture Myth

I am impressed by this article -- The Power of Venture Myth

Anyway, it confirms one thing - Google is not going to buy Riya.

Technorati's Result

Today's Technorati's results demand some explanation...

1. Wikipedia... even since some research report on wikipedia came out, and the furor over a supposed joke, and now .... we have more stories like the founder of wikipedia editing his own bio to get more credit, and co-founder Larry Sanger is now setting up a rival encyclopedia. Well, see more on digg (wikipedia)

2. "Jonathan Alter" is the ever popular (unpopular to politicians) guy on Newsweek, which I currently deem as not any better than TIME or The Economist. Of course... an issues of Newsweek cannot escape his famous Law of Media Oscillation. It goes like this...

"Under the Law of Media Oscillation, the only safe prediction is that a static, unchanging political narrative is impossible. Stuff happens in war and politics. And when it doesn't, the media will half-consciously rearrange all the atoms of emphasis and particles of story choice to make it seem so."

3. Bush is back on Technorati's top 10 (after a brief period of absence). [forever (in)famous]. We just need to read google news for the latest on him...

4. Transit Strike... no comment. read google news.

5. Ah... Christmas is fast approaching... Gentle reminder for myself to send ecards.

6. "King Kong" is the new movie by Peter Jackson, director of the highly-acclaimed LOTR. The movie is 3hrs and 7 mins (thats long) [according to IMDB]

7. Kristof [no comment]

8. NKF... People NOT in Singapore might be wondering what this is about... A little explanation must be suitable. NKF stands for National Kidney Foundation. The NKF Saga [as now called] by the local press... [etc]. ok. The public furor is over the release of the accounting report after the NKF lawsuit in which the CEO quit. Apparently, the findings are shocking. The Straits Time (a local newspaper owned by Singapore Press Holdings), has Mr. Durai's (the CEO) picture (full length from head to toe) on the newspaper front page, HOME section front page and 5 additional pages of full reporting in HOME section (promising even more details tomorrow). WOW... although we know that SPH was involved in the lawsuit... and won... but, and no but, to be politically correct, the public needs to know the truth... As I last checked, the NKF ranking on Technorati has moved up to no. 7th position.

9. No comment.

10. No comment.

Having said so much, let me tag them...
Technorati:
jonathan alter, NKF, wikipedia, bush, king kong, christmas

FutureMe

Create an email and send it to the future today!
http://www.futureme.org
Its an interesting concept.

www.ajchat.com

Allow me to bring your attention to www.ajchat.com

Ajchat is a simple online chat system, done in a web 2.0 style.


Why use ajchat?

• When your chat program/network is down.
• When you need to meet up with your friends really quick! (and you don't have a chat program installed)
• When you desperately need an answer to a question (and you are tired of googling)
• When you feel like it!
• Anywhere, anytime, any browser! (Firefox, Flock, Internet Explorer, Safari)
• You don't need Java!

In addition, I might add that ajchat also has an interesting share chat feature, which enables you to add a chat on a particular topic to your webpage.

Technorati: ajchat, web2.0, web 2.0, Ajax, chat

Gaim 2.0.0beta1

Gaim 2.0.0beta1 was just released 3 days ago!!

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ Use GAIM, support opensource.

IE 7 is definitely useful!

It seems to be that Microsoft has been making alot of unnessary blunders on their website nowadays. While visiting the IE7 website, i scrolled to the bottom and discovered that the "No" button for the "Was This Information Useful?" field was missing. At first i thought that my firefox has accidentally forgot to load one of the buttons, so i reloaded the page. The button is still missing.

So you see? Users are not to say NO to IE7. And IE7 is definitely useful. =D

PS: This is not a joke. The screenshot above is not photoshoped. This is a geninue screenshot.

YouTube

This website is addictive!

YouTube is a short-movie sharing website. Movies can be added to your websites as well [using shockwave-flash (just add the necessary code)]. Very cool.

Their tag line is "Broadcast yourself. Watch and share your videos worldwide!"

PHP Security Guide

http://phpsec.org/projects/guide

A MUST READ for any serious PHP developer.

Is string theory in trouble?

Gosh... find out more by reading this.

combiNEWS.com

combiNEWS.com is the combination of both Google news and Yahoo! news, created to compare their top news headlines by putting them side-by-side.

Well... whats so interesting? What IS interesting is how the domain name came about.

Apparently, they received an email from Yahoo! IP Enforcement entitled "NOTIFICATION OF INFRINGEMENT / googleyahoonews.com". [their previous website was at googleyahoonews.com]

To find out more, read http://www.combinews.com/about.php

Anyway... you see that its Yahoo that is making a lot of noise, not Google. (Initially, the site also received a free Adwords voucher from Google to advertise googleyahoonews.com)

Syndicate Conference

Syndicāte is a technology and business conference where leaders and early movers in this new marketplace can share their expertise and ideas. Joining them will be senior publishing and media executives, corporate marketers, product managers, advertising and public relations professionals, intellectual property experts, venture capitalists... everybody who knows their business will be transformed by syndication -- and needs to know more.

http://www.syndicateconference.com/

Just over in San Francisco.

Mass Communication & Politics

The winds of politics have also been affected by the advert of mass communication and the creation of a global village. Politicians are now more aware of the power of electronic communication such as the Internet as seen from the huge role it has played in influencing votes by engaging young voters. The bringing of many different groups together online to influence perspective and ideas has forced politicians to be aware of more mainstream views. In this regard, the fluidity of communication has also caused transatlantic political pressures to be considered as important in national policies and agendas. For instance, electronic communications brought scenes of horror and distraught during the Vietnam War to many countries around the world through newspapers and television. This influenced global opinion and had a pressing impact on politics in the United States. In retrospect, a problem in one part of the world can be brought across to many in other areas of this global village by means of mass communication.

Yonah

A new processor from Intel, codenamed Yonah, will make its debut on Jan 6th (the launch will be in India).

Intel’s Yonah is a dual-core chip based on the 65nm fabrication process. Yonah will also mark the first launch with Intel’s new strategy in place – performance per watt.

What is interesting is that Jan 6th is 6 days after AMD's invitation for a dual-core duel ends.
So Intel is ignoring AMD (for the time being). The right strategy. Perhaps.

Office 12

On Nov 16, Microsoft released the technical beta of Office 12 to 10,000 customers.

Well... for those who did not have a chance to take part in the beta,
I managed to get a look (open in New Window first) at what the beta page looks like.
(Special thanks to Pak Chuen for this.)

Flawed MP3 player, and now flawed earphones?

I have always been a supporter of Sony products because of its high
quality and durability. However, this year, I bought the Sony MDR-EX81
at the price of SDG80, which is very expensive for a earphone. I
expected the sound quality and durability to be superb, but after a
few month's use, i felt like i've been ripped off.

Within a few months' use, the plastic/rubber insulation of the wire
starts falling apart. I firmly believe that this is not a mistake or
mishandling on my part, as many other users experienced the same
problem. You can take a look at the links provided.
Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

There are many many more such cases on the net and all this points to
the fact that this particular earphone has a serious issue and I'm
paying such a high price to be ripped off by sony.

And of course, sony is smart enough to NOT provide warranty.

meebo

Say meebo... and www.meebo.com you go!
But does not seem to work very well.

I wonder how they intend to make profits? Through ads? It seems that the popular web 2.0 approach is ads? But how long can it last before people start to use ad blocking software?

In addition, I don't see why I must use this when MSN web messenger is more reliable [and more secure (the only disadvantage being I must use IE).]


I will be in Malaysia for a week... so expect fewer posts. I addition, I am currently reading Freakonomics (although I have recommended it long ago), I have only started reading it now. Its a really insightful book. Go get it if you can.

THE Economist

Introducing... a peek into Alan Greenspan fan club...
http://www.theeconomist.com/

MailNation Solutions

1000 GB of free email space?
http://www.mailnation.net/
Its very crap... I doubt it works.

They use IceWarp Software, Merak Email Server. Even if it works... its peanuts compared to Gmail or Yahoo Mail.

FireFox 1.5

We are EXTREMELY HAPPY... because FIREFOX 1.5 is here!!!

Its really cool... with support for CSS 3 and SVG and movable tabs for tab browsing. For themes, we recommend you try out the iFox theme... (mac style). In addition, you can now access www.mozilla.com instead of www.mozilla.org.

Finally, if you are viewing this blog in Internet Explorer, we can say with full confidence that you should make the switch today!

AMD Intel Dual-Core Duel Ad

I saw this ad in the newspaper (The Straits Times, Digital Life) today...

Looks like the duel is finally scheduled for 6 December 2005, and right here in Singapore!
Details: 6 Dec 2005, 1.30 pm, Chihuly Room, The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore.


Another ad on another page was on Sun... (looks funny)... a picuture of a tree and money bags.

Gollum Browser

Gollum Browser is a rather cool name for a wikipedia browser! It is actually a browser inside a browser and uses Ajax. This is another innovative way ajax is put to good use!

Although I don't see why I should use Gollum Browser rather go straight to wikipedia, it looks a little faster than visiting the wikipedia page itself (maybe because its the gollum server [better connections / higher bandwidth] reads from wikipedia and then sends the data over to the user.)

AJAX Libraries

I have been trying out some AJAX Libraries these few days...

1. XAJAX (for PHP)
Its cool, but lacks documentation (you have to look at the script and see some additional stuff you can do). Its also easy to use, but currently lacks the functionality I would like. If you want to use this, I suggest you download the one from CVS (since version 0.2 will be out soon) and version 0.1 lacks many features. Supports unicode. Its much simpler to use than SAJAX.

2. SAJAX
Its very easy to use, and its compatible with many programming languages, PHP, ASP, etc.
But again, it also lacks functionality. Does not support unicode unless you modify the script a little (don't use the js escape function). Cannot pass multi-dimensional array. I like SAJAX.

Of course, the two ajax libs above are not comparable to prototype. If you really want a really powerful ajax (and easy) library with PHP, you have to wait, or write one yourself. prototype.js is hard to use because it lacks documentation.

For a list of other AJAX libraries (and their pros and cons), check out the Survey of AJAX/JavaScript Libraries.

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning

I complete missed this out... until I saw it in the newspapers today. I guessed I am at the edge of the Star Trek universe now...

Anyway, presenting Star Wrek

Note: you should download the file with subtitles (unless you understand french).

Forget Blu-ray and HD-DVD - They are History

A computer disc about the size of a DVD that can hold 60 times more data will go on sale in 2006, according to its American developer InPhase Technologies, a Lucent spin off.

The discs, holding 300GB each, use so-called Tapestry holographic memory technology to store data by interference of light. They are also able to read and write data at 10 times the speed of a normal DVD.

For more information, read this.

TurboDbAdmin

As cool as PHPMyAdmin! (but not as stable)
http://turboajax.com/turbodbadmin.html
It uses the dojo toolkit.

Echo Bay

From Softpedia:

At first, the site was auctioning some of Omidyar’s personal stuff, but in a short time, other goods started to appear as well; the first auction took place on September 4. Shortly thereafter, Omidyar changed the site’s name to EBay.com, abbreviating his consultancy company’s name, Echo Bay. Omidyar chose EBay.com, because EchoBay.com was already taken.

Seriously... eBay sounds a lot better than EchoBay

Currently, whois records for echobay.com shows:

Registrant:
Echo Bay Mines
6400 S Fiddler's Green Circle, Ste 540
Englewood, CO 80111-4957
US

Record expires on 26-Oct-2006
Record created on 27-Oct-1994
Database last updated on 23-Sep-2005

Smartest Company of the Year

This is in answer to b2.0's call for a poll. I admit its hard to think of another company besides Google or Apple.

But besides the point, I think the smartest man on earth got to be Dale Dougherty of O'Reilly Media. Why? For his contribution to the web 2.0 buzzword. Its a really amazing term that pieces together what has been going on these few years. Some say web 2.0 is a marketing buzzword... yes, I admit it has been effective to that extent [the freakonomics side of it perhaps].


Technorati: web 2.0, web2.0, web20

Web 2.0 Revisited (Web 2.5 Soon?)

In this post, I hope to give readers a bigger picture of what can be classified as web 1.0 and web 2.0. I am expanding on the list of examples in "O'Reilly: What is Web 2.0".

Web 1.0		Web 2.0		Web 2.5?
DoubleClick	-->	Google AdSense	-->	Google Click-to-Call Ads
Ofoto	-->	Flickr	-->	Riya
Akamai	-->	BitTorrent / Freenet
mp3.com	-->	Napster / iTunes / MP3.Baidu
Britannica Online	-->	Wikipedia	-->	Growth of Wikis [wikicities]
personal websites	-->	blogging / podcasting
evite	-->	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	-->	search engine optimization	-->	SEO Companies (blacka nd white hat techniques)
page views	-->	cost per click	-->	More costly cost per click
screen scraping	-->	web services	-->	web & software services [MS OfficeLive]
publishing	-->	participation	-->	more participation (like digg.com)
content management systems	-->	wikis	-->	wikis (wikipads, NumSum, etc) and blogs
directories (taxonomy)	-->	tagging ("folksonomy")	-->	artificial intelligence (swicki)
stickiness	-->	syndication	-->	Not just for blogs. Now we have news, content-related services, watchlists. And the new buzz about Really Simple Sharing (NOT Really Simple Syndication).
newsgroups	-->	forums and blogs	-->	blogs workgroups (e.g. b5media, web 2.0 workgroup)
		Amazon.com
social networking via chat rooms	-->	friendster.com / hi5.com		43things

Lets face it. Web 2.0 is now about 2 years old... and this week, you can see that "Web 2.0" and "Ajax" have gone up to the front of Technorati search list (beating the forever popular keyword "Bush").

The Case for Web 2.5 - No

From my mini survey of people having a keen interests in IT, I realised that many many people are not aware of web 2.0. Some admitted having came across this word, but don't know the meaning. Got one guy even tried to guess that web 2.0 is a "new form of html". (To clarrify, web 2.0 is an attitude, a trend, not a technology.) So this means that Web 2.0 is still relatively new. Maybe we need to wait another 1 to 2 years to introduce this term - Web 2.5 or Web 3.0. Further more, we don't really have anything substaintiable to define web 2.5. We can just dump anything new that comes along the way [anything to do with ajax for example], as web 2.0

The Case for Web 2.5 - Yes

Every new trend will eventually fade. Right now we are seeing lots of new and innovative ideas. As the barriers of technology break down, and new stuff are invented, its all a question of when, not how. Web 2.5 can be specifically used to describe the expansion stage of Web 2.0. Study the table above closely to see what I mean.


Technorati: web 2.0, web2.0, web20

SphereXP (3D Desktop)

Check out SphereXP... it looks cool (but make sure your computer has got the basic requirements).

The Sphere is theory of an 3D workspace represented by a sphere. The user is exactly in the middle of it. All objects are situated around the user. He can easily turn around and manipulate with them. They can be moved around according to some rules. You can bring them closer to the view port or send them back. The theory can be applied to almost any known program. Starting with the desktop interface. Now continuing with a web browser.

MathML in Firefox

I just found out that to view Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) properly in Firefox, you need to download the fonts.

As for IE 6, external plugins are needed to view MathML properly.

And if you want to check if your browser can support MathML, go to this test page.
For list of supported browsers, see this.

For not-so-apparent reasons, IE always seems to have problems following W3C's recommendations. I wonder if IE 7 will support XHTML 2.0 and MathML (unlikely, Microsoft will most likely leave it to external plugins to "demonstrate" the "flexibility" of IE).

I just looked at the IE blog.


If I ever get to install IE 7... the first thing I will do is to find a way to fix that MSN Search to Google Search.

Wind, Sand and Stars

Yes... "Wind, Sand and Stars" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

An excerpt: [took this from Wei Guo's blog]

"So in the heart of the desert, on the naked rind of the planet, in an isolation like that of the beginnings of the world, we built a village of men. We told stories, we sang songs. In the air there was that slight fever that reigns over a gaily prepared feast. And yet we were infinitely poor. Wind, sand and stars. The austerity of Trappists. But in this badly lighted cloth, a handful of men who possessed nothing in the world but their memories were sharing invisible riches."

Imagination is a beautiful thing. But citizens in a democracy should go one step further -- to know how to talk (and argue).

BitTorrent to block links to pirate movies

This is another political move for BitTorrent to "get out of trouble before it starts". Of course, its also a PR move for Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA) to show that it is not another Microsoft (sue first, then talk later [if you remember the guy who single-handedly brought down a team of Microsoft lawyers]).

Very soon, we may find that other p2p networks will follow suite and shake hands with MPAA and Co. Maybe its time we move on to freenet. (I don't like freenet. It is very slow.)

To find out more about BitTorrent and MPAA, read this.


Technorati: bitTorrent

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is forever a hot topic.

The latest news I have is http://www.ownpr7.com/, which claims that it has "got high pagerank due to some black hat SEO methods" (I have also verified that it does indeed as a PageRank of 8 as claimed)

What got me interested was the reference to black hat SEO methods. (just like there are white hackers and black hackers, it is safe to say that there are black and white hats SEO methods as well.)

According to this forum, the standard "doctrine" regarding such categorisation is as follow:

Blackhat:
Blog Spam
Cloaking
Tricky Re-directs
Black Hat SEO stops at "nothing" to get a high ranking.
People not
following the google guidelines.

White Hat:
Content, Content, Content
Relevant backlinks
Site maps
White Hat SEO follows the Google quality guidelines (and the equivalent at
other engines) to the letter.

If you want to find out your Google PageRank (one a scale of 0 to 10), go here.

Microsoft Office 12

When planning the next release of the Microsoft Office system of products, we took on the challenge of making the core Microsoft Office applications easier to work with. Taking into account extensive usability data and recent advancements in hardware and software, the team has delivered the most significant update to the Microsoft Office user interface (UI) in more than a decade. The result of these efforts is a user interface that makes it easier for people to find and confidently use the appropriate features they need to get the results they want.

Interesting interface, but I think most of us are more used to our current system of toolbars and menus. The new UI will only confuse existing users. I think.

Fore more information, click here.

RSS - Getting Simpler?

There is a recent buzz on the internet with regards to Ray Ozzie's (Microsoft CTO) new post on his blog. Why? Apparently, he wants to translate Really Simple Syndication into Really Simple Sharing!

Read to find out more.

Its interesting to note that he ends off by saying that he is pleased that Microsoft is supporting the Creative Commons approach. (He may be pleased... but is Bill Gates pleased? [Bill Gates recently labelled opensource as communism])

Europe MPs urge Singapore to spare Australian's life

Its very interesting to see that Europe is now being pulled into this little issue where which has become slightly bloated (as inferred from the fact that it made to the bottom of Google News front page.)

Nguyen Tuong Van - the case for clemency? Apparently not, the government here says. Not surprisingly, the newspapers here has not given much coverage into this issue (besides the standard talk in The Straits Times' review pages and maybe forums). Take for example, today's The Straits Times paper only brought the issue up in page 17 (and classified it under "World News").

Personally, I believe that whatever much of lobbying international diplomats and politicians do, its very (99%) unlikely that the Singapore government will change her mind. To do so would present the image that the government is undecisive, and seen to be bowing to international pressure. Further more, taking into account the government long history of being firm and confident in whatever they do (the standard story being that they have studied the issue for a long time, weighed the issue heavily, looked at it from all angles, etc), it its even more unlikely that anything sudden will happen.

Having written so far, its fair to say that today's news will be tomorrow's history (no matter how much lobbying takes place.)

PHP Pear AJAX Library

PHP and JavaScript AJAX library
Version 0.3 (alpha) was just released 5 days ago.
http://pear.php.net/package/HTML_AJAX/

Technorati: ajax, php

Google Analytics

I have been receiving this for 2 days...

Analytics has been successfully installed and data is being gathered now. The demand for Google Analytics surpassed even our highest expectations and as a result some customers may temporarily experience report-update delays. All data continues to be collected and no data has been lost. We are currently adding resources to ensure high-quality service. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Arg... GOOGLE!

Chain Mail

I received this chain mail from a friend today...
some abstracts...

Title: Fwd: FW: Fwd: PLEEEEEEASE READ!!!! (it was on the news)

Contents (some part of it):

> > > THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY -
> > IT IS FOR REAL
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Subject: PLEEEEEEASE READ!!!! it was on the
> > news!
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > This thing is for real. Rest assured AOL and
> > Intel will follow through
> > > with their promises for fear of facing a
> > multimillion-dollar class
> > > action suit similar to the one filed by PepsiCo
> > against General
> > > Electric
> > > not too long ago.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Friends; Please do not take this for a
> > junk letter. Bill Gates
> > > sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You
> > will repent later.
> > > Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet
> > companies and in an
> > > effort to make sure that Internet Explorer
> > remains the most widely used
> > > program, Microsoft and AOL are running an
> > e-mail beta test.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > When you forward this e-mail to friends,
> > Microsoft can and will track
> > > it
> > > ( If you are a Microsoft Windows user) For a
> > two weeks time period.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > For every person that you forward this e-mail
> > to, Microsoft will pay
> > > you
> > > $245.00 For every person that you sent it to
> > that forwards it on,
> > > Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every
> > third person that receives
> > > it, You will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks,
> > Microsoft will contact
> > > you for your address and then send you a check.
> > >
> > >
> > > Regards. Charles S Bailey General Manager Field
> > Operations
> > > 1-800-842-2332 Ext. 1085 or 904-1085 or RNX
> > > 292-1085 Charles_Bailey@csx.com
> > Charles_bailey@csx.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I thought this was a scam myself, But two weeks
> > after receiving this
> > > e-mail and forwarding it on. Microsoft
> > contacted me for my address and
> > > withindays, I receive a check for $24,800.00.
> > You need to respond
> > > before
> > > the beta testing is over. If anyone can afford
> > this, Bill gates is the
> > > man.
> > >
> > >
> > > It's all marketing expense to him. Please
> > forward this to as many
> > > people
> > > as possible. You are bound to get at least
> > $10,000.00 We're not going
> > > to
> > > help them out with their e-mail beta test
> > without getting a little
> > > something for our time. My brother's girlfriend
> > got in on this a few
> > > months ago. When I went to visit him for the
> > Baylor/UT game. She showed
> > > me her check. It was for the sum of $4,324.44
> > and was stamped "Paid in
> > > full"
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Like I said before, I know the law, and this is
> > for real.
> > >
> > >
> > > Intel and AOL are now discussing a merger whic
> > h would make them the
> > > largest Internet company and in an effort make
> > sure that AOL remains
> > > the
> > > most widely used program, Intel and AOL are
> > running an e-mail beta
> > > test.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > When you forward this e-mail to friends, Intel
> > can and will track it(
> > > if
> > > you are a Microsoft Windows user)for a two week
> > time period.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Try it; What have you got to lose

I find this rather amusing. IF its for real, it will be on Google News RIGHT NOW! Apparently, some internet users are still quite gullible.

Notepad.NET

Ya, there is much excitement about the recent release of VS.NET 2005. Since I know about this, I've been busy trying to do coding in Visual Basic 2005, which is vastly from what I learnt before, Visual Basic 6. The difference is not as vast as most people claim it to be, but VB2005 can prove to be troublesome for existing VB6 users as VB2005 proves to be needlessly Object Orientated. Those who have totally no idea how object orientated programming works may not be able to move to VB2005 successully.

To sum up the difference between VB6 and VB2005,
VB2005 made alot of things that were hard to do in VB6 a lot easier,
but VB2005 also made things that were easy to do in VB6 hard to do or disappear althogether.

Neverthless, i perservered, and came up with a totally new software, coded 100% in VB2005: Notepad.NET

Notepad.NET is a leading-edge text editor. Simply put, it gives a whole new meaning to the word "Notepad". Think of the simplicity of a standard windows notepad, and couple that with tons of useful features that you have never even dream of. Ideal for professionals and novices alike, this free software is a must for all notepad users out there.

For more information regarding this new software, please visit:
http://thecomputer.inoru.net/wktech.html

Office Live (Beta)

I received this in the Microsoft Inside Office newsletter today:

Microsoft Office Live is coming
Office Live is a suite of hosted services that helps small businesses create a professional online presence. It also automates processes such as employee management, payroll, and more. Be part of the free limited beta program. Register now at www.officelive.com.

But the small print on the website says:

*At this time, participation in the Microsoft Office Live Beta services program is open to U.S. residents only. Due to the number of requests received for this beta, we cannot guarantee participation for every registrant. If you are selected as a beta participant, you will receive an e-mail message from us with further information.

Visual Basic 2005 Express

Seems like Microsoft wants VB6 authors to migrate to VB2005:

Visual Basic 6 users
You’ll find the best learning and upgrade content for Visual Basic 6 users at VBRun, the Visual Basic 6.0 Resource Center. This includes free offers from partners on getting additional training. You can also find detailed information and guidance on upgrading your Visual Basic 6.0 applications at Patterns and Practices.

From: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/features/learn/default.aspx

The N Queens Problem

The N Queens Problem is a very famous mathematics and computer alogorithm problem.

Abstract

It is derived from the 8 queens problem, where the aim is to find the possible ways to place 8 queens on a chessboard so that no queen would attack any other queen. Alternatively, it can also be said that the aim is to palce 8 queens on a 8 times 8 grid so that none of the queens share a common row, column or diagonal.

History

This problem was originally propsed in 1848 by the chess player Max Bazzel, and many mathematicians (like Guass) have worked on these problems over the years. Even better... this problem appeared in an early computer program called The 7th Guest.

Solutions

So instead of 8 queens, consider N queens on a N times N size chessboard (i.e. N times N boxes in a grid)

There are actually many ways to derive the solutions. The trick is to draw a diagonal line. This website offers some interesting insight on getting solutions if someone ever asks you for one.

So why am I talking about this now? The reason is because I spent one whole week trying to figure out a fast algorithm to get the solutions. Apparently, this problem can be coded with simple recursion and brute force alogrithm. And I finally got the time limit under 1 second for N = 13... when I declared char (character) instead of int (integer)!

My solution in c++ is here.

Some interesting statistics: (Note: unique solutions means we disallow rotations/reflections)

Order     < --- Ordinary Queens   --- >    
('N')    Total Solutions   Unique Solutions 
--------------------------------------------
1                      1                  1
2                      0                  0
3                      0                  0
4                      2                  1
5                     10                  2  
6                      4                  1 
7                     40                  6 
8                     92                 12  
9                    352                 46
10                   724                 92
11                 2,680                341
12                14,200              1,787
13                73,712              9,233
14               365,596             45,752
15             2,279,184            285,053 
16            14,772,512          1,846,955    
17            95,815,104         11,977,939 
18           666,090,624         83,263,591
19         4,968,057,848        621,012,754  
20        39,029,188,884      4,878,666,808
21       314,666,222,712     39,333,324,973 
22     2,691,008,701,644    336,376,244,042
23    24,233,937,684,440  3,029,242,658,210

For the mathematics part of it, consider the article on mathworld.

Slash7

A little promotion:
We find this blog (slash7) extrememly good for basics on web design.
Check out the "talks and slides section" on the blog.
Its very cool.

Sory(Sony) Electronics

Is Sony sory?

PhD Comics

http://www.phdcomics.com/

Google Base & Analytics

Yesh! Google Base is back again!

Google Base is a place where you can add all types of information that we'll host and make searchable online.

You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

Also, check out

Formerly known as "Urchin".

VS Express Editions 2005

Today I installed Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition.
A brief rundown of what happened and what to expect...

Installation

• I downloaded the 2MB installer (which will access the computer stat and download the necessary files from Microsoft server. You need internet access for installation.)
• It was a 60MB download for VB 2005 and .NET 2.0 (without MSDN & SQL)
• Speed was fast, at 32kbps. The whole process (including installation) was less than 1 hour and 30 mins. You have to accept the EULA, and set the installation path. From there, nothing is needed (download and installation proceeded smoothly. Note: The installation took over immediately after the download was complete.)
• I did not need to uninstall .NET 1.1 (but if you have .NET 2.0 beta, you must uninstall first)
  From forum:
  

  Thats correct, .NET Framework 2.0 installation does not update or remove v1.1
  
  It is not necessary to remove .NET Framework 1.1 as multiple versions of the framework can coexist without any issues. Also you would need it to run any applications built using v1.1

  
  
  Note:
  

  Before installing, you must uninstall any previous versions of SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, and the .NET Framework 2.0.

  
  
  

Registration

You should register (read this).
Although there are many registration benefits, it is a disincentive to not register. Why?
According to the FAQ:

Registration is required in order to receive a registration key for Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions that are downloaded directly from Microsoft. Without a registration key, downloaded Editions will no longer work after 30 days.

Registration is simply. You need a Microsoft Passport (aka Hotmail/MSN account, etc)

After installation, you must click on the link in the installation program to get the key.
Get the key, start VB 2005, under the Help menu, enter your registration key.

Note: According to this thread,

If you installed the software from an image created disk, then you do not need a product key...

I don't know if you will get the registration benefits.

Very interesting: Jin Guan pointed out that there is a person registered as Harry Potter in Microsoft Forums.

Registration Benefits

Microsoft then emailed me regarding registration benefits, and asked me to visit the Registration Benefits Portal
Which is actually part of Microsoft Connect

Welcome to Microsoft Connect, the new product development collaboration site at Microsoft.

Your role in product development is important to us. By including you in our development process, we can make sure that our products meet the needs of our users and are reliable.

This site enables you to connect with Microsoft developers, product managers, and other development team members to help us make our products the best they can be.

You can also work with others to evaluate the importance of reported bugs, and to identify workarounds for issues.

I am also asked to register for Microsoft Connect.
Important: They will let you choose your age. Remember to indicate you are over 18 years old. Originally, I selected "16-17" (years old) and was rejected, the reason being that I must be over 18 years of age.

Later I arrived at this page:



To download the stuff like the free eBook, I had to install an Active X named "Microsoft File Transfer Manager 4.0 (Build 0081)".



VB 2005 Express Edition

Program is lag in some instances as compared to my VB 6 Enterprise Edition.
The compiler gives meaning ful errors and warnings. Huge improvements. More like Bloodshed Dev C++.

MSDN Library

Help is available through the MSDN library (even if you did not install MSDN [locally]), which connects to the Microsoft Server
E.g.
ms-help://MS.VSExpressCC.v80/MS.NETFramework.v20.en/dv_vsref/html/259dfa46-a3bd-4b77-8acb-1cfab3eaae5a.htm

Note the ms-help:// protocol.

Alternatively, you can install the MSDN library to run locally.


Technorati: Microsoft Visual+Studio+Express, .NET, Visual Basic

World Cyber Games 2005

The World Cyber Games (WCG) 2005 is right here in Singapore!



Some quick stats:

• Nov 16 - Nov 20
• 67 countries participating
• about 1200 matches

There are posters, songs, lucky draws, and much more!
Check out the WCG 2005 website!

Sony Malware

If you want technical information regarding the Sony Malware and the public furor over it, we recommend this website.
So the morale of the story? Don't buy anything from Sony.

Microsoft Targets HPC Market

In a recent speech, Bill Gates stressed the need for Microsoft to target the affordable high-performance computing (HPC) market. However, we think that its too late for Microsoft.
Now allow us to dwell on our reasons.

1. The HPC market, though affordable, it hard to penetrate, with traditional giants like IBM and Hitachi at the front line. To put in it in layman terms, Microsoft does not know the lay of the lands in the neck of the woods.

2. HPC is also Linux domain.

The question is whether anybody in the space wants Microsoft there.
- Charles King, PundIT Research

3. The traditional tools of HPC are also Linux based. E.g. LAM/MPI, MPICH, etc.
Linux, being opensource, offers developers and users to tweak the programs to their specific needs. (Better than an idiot-proof Microsoft product)

4. Its costly for a Microsoft. In terms of R & D and manpower, Microsoft is unable to match the thousands of opensource programmers out there. Microsoft's Windows NT has not been readily accepted in the HPC environment.

5. We admit, its rather true that HPC is making great inroads into our lives, esp in Universities where research into all fields of science has never been so heavy before. The supercomputers of today may just be the computer of tomorrow. 50 years down the road, we have been able to shrink a basketball court size computer network into a small mainframe. (Think the The Manhattan Project).

Page Indexer with Auto-Refresh (Using SAJAX)

Some time back I did a PHP page indexer with auto-refresh using SAJAX.
You can see it here.

Technorati: sajax

MS Visual Studio Express Free! (Con't)

Well, it seems that Microsoft has recently corrected their J++ site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualJ/default.aspx

Yet, it is still fun to be able to spot the mistake of such a giant corporation.

Kids Programming Language

Kid's Programming Language (KPL) is based on basic, but targeted at "kids". It can used as an alternative to using QBasic first before learning Visual Basic or C++, considering that QBasic is now no longer "supported".

There is no need to use APIs or even visual forms in KPL (I suspect its very much like QBasic, but much better).

Above information courtesy of Jin Guan.

30Gigs.com (Updates)

This is an update from the previous post (10 days ago).

We found that 30Gigs.com now has a new interface, which does not make use of framesets as it did previously. Currently, they also display ads on the left column. They also use AJAX. Some pages do not seem to work. I login and was greeted with a "The page cannot be displayed" IE error message.

It would seem that they have really replaced the whole interface. Their "old website" (using SquirrelMail), can be found at http://old.30gigs.com

They have also increase the number of invites. And yeah... HanWorks Research got some 30Gigs invites left. So if you want an invite (or even Gmail invites), contact us.

And I just discovered that the email on the top righthand column did not work because the Junk Mail filter was set to "Exclusive". I have corrected the mistake. Sorry for this.

Technorati: 30gigs, 30gigs.com

Version Numbering System

Have you ever wondered how version numbering system works?
Today, we shall take a look at the Linux kernel version number system.

The version number of the Linux kernel currently consists of four numbers, following a recent change in the long-standing policy of a three-number versioning scheme. For illustration, let it be assumed that the version number is composed thus: A.B.C[.D] (e.g. 2.2.1, 2.4.13 or 2.6.12.3).

* The A number denotes the kernel version. It is changed least frequently, and only when major changes in the code and the concept of the kernel occur. It has been changed twice in the history of the kernel: In 1994 (version 1.0) and in 1996 (version 2.0).

* The B number denotes the major revision of the kernel. Even numbers indicate a stable release, i.e. one that is deemed fit for production use, such as 1.2, 2.4 or 2.6. Odd numbers are development releases, such as 1.1 or 2.5. They are for testing new features and drivers until they become sufficiently stable to be included in a stable release.

* The C number indicates the minor revision of the kernel. In the old three-number versioning scheme, this was changed when security patches, bugfixes, new features or drivers were implemented in the kernel. With the new policy, however, it is only changed when new drivers or features are introduced; minor fixes are handled by the D number.

* A D number first occurred when a grave error, which required immediate fixing, was encountered in 2.6.8's NFS code. However, there were not enough other changes to legitimate the release of a new minor revision (which would have been 2.6.9). So, 2.6.8.1 was released, with the only change being the fix of that error. With 2.6.11, this was adopted as the new official versioning policy. Bugfixes and security patches are now managed by the fourth number, whereas bigger changes are only implemented in minor revision changes (the C number).

Explorer Destroyer

In firm actions to switch people from IE to Firefox, some people out there with too much time on their hands created this site:

http://explorerdestroyer.com

Switch your users to Firefox and make money.

You already want people to switch to Firefox. Now's the time to get serious about it. Google is paying $1 for each new Firefox user you refer.

This is pretty amazing. Now you can advance your ideals, save people from popups and spyware hell, and make some serious money. Millions of people have heard about Firefox and are ready to switch--all they need is a friendly push.

That's where these scripts come in. They're specially formulated to give just the right push, maximizing souls-saved and dollars-for-you.

Nice, isn't it?

TortoiseSVN

Cheers! I finally found a Subversion client for windows.
Check out TortoiseSVN

The Anatomy of the Long Tail

What's really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you've got a market bigger than the hits. Take books: The average Barnes & Noble carries 130,000 titles. Yet more than half of Amazon's book sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles. Consider the implication: If the Amazon statistics are any guide, the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are (see "Anatomy of the Long Tail"). In other words, the potential book market may be twice as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the economics of scarcity. Venture capitalist and former music industry consultant Kevin Laws puts it this way: "The biggest money is in the smallest sales."

Find out what it is here.

Internet Trends

Check out this presentation, presented at the Web 2.0 Conference 2005, on "Internet Trends".

Windows Live Ideas

What is Windows Live?
Your online world gets better when everything works simply and effortlessly together. That's the basic idea behind Windows Live. So the things you care about - your friends, the latest information, your e-mails, powerful search, your PC files, everything – comes together in one place. This is a brand new Internet experience designed to put you in control. And this is just the beginning – you'll see many more new services in the coming months.

What is Windows Live Ideas?
Windows Live Ideas (the page you're looking at right now) is where you can check out the very latest Windows Live products—so new that they're not even finished yet. So give them a try and then tell us exactly what you think. And don't hold back. We need your help to make these products the best they can be.

(Highlighting not available on Live.com)

Consists of Live.com beta, Windows Live Mail Beta, Windows Live Safety Center beta, Windows Live Favorites beta, Windows Live Messenger beta, Windows OneCare Live beta, Windows Live Search beta-mobile.

I guess I'm only looking forward to Mail and Messenger... Mail looks cleaner than Hotmail currently, but hope there are no ads in this new version. :) Messenger is supposedly going to be the latest incarnation of MSN Messenger, where else can we get the same Messenger?

Safety Center seems a bit dangerous, seems like it can run Windows programs from within IE, technique may be used by attackers huh? (Anyway Microsoft Updates does that too, guess its only a matter of time before something like this appears)

http://ideas.live.com/

MS Visual Studio Express Free!

Today, Microsoft launched the Express Editions of Visual Studio 2005. In doing so, Microsoft appears to be following the path taken by Sun in making Java free.

The VS Express 2005 Package includes:
Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
Visual J# 2005 Express Edition
& SQL Server Express Edition

Originally, VS Express Edition was in beta (and I remembed Microsoft giving out free VS Express 2005 Beta CDs during Oracle OpenWorld 2004 in SF).

Wait... but there is a catch! Although many news website simply says that is is free...
Microsoft says:
Visual Studio Express Editions—Free for 1 year
SQL Server Express Editions—Free

Until November 7, 2006, we are promotionally discounting the downloadable versions of Express to free. This doesn’t mean that the product turns off after a year, but rather that as long as you download the product before November 7, 2006, you can get it for free and you can use it forever.

But even more assuming was the fact that a friend of mine, Wei Kiat, point out that there is an error on Microsoft's J# website.



Apparently, Microsoft simply copied the whole chunck of text from the Visual C# Website.



Note: this problem still existed when we posted this message. We don't know if it has been changed.


Technorati: Microsoft Visual+Studio+Express

HTTP Compression

There is a not-so-well-known configuration in Apache 2.0 called mod_deflate.

The mod_deflate module provides the DEFLATE output filter that allows output from your server to be compressed before being sent to the client over the network.

This actually refers to HTTP compression through gzip, which can speed up data transfer over the internet. Gmail uses this (thats why its fast).


So, how to use this feature?

1. Go to your apache 2.0 config file (httpd.conf)
2. Add this line
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml
3. save the config file, restart apache and you are done.
4. to see the http header that is now sent, use FireFox (menu->tools->Live HTTP Headers) and look through it (Assuming you have the Live HTTP Headers installed).
5. You should see something like this:

Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate

Civil Unrest in France

"Rioters attacked us with baseball bats," Philippe Jofres, a deputy fire chief sitting in his truck, told the France-2 television network. "We were attacked with pickaxes. It was war."

A sad week for France.

Hotmail

I received this today...
so Microsoft is finally getting somewhere...

Dear MSN Hotmail Member,

Your MSN Hotmail Inbox Storage has been upgraded to 250 MB and there is an increased attachment size of 10 MB!

What does this mean for you?
Well, you’ll be able store even more e-mail and share larger attachments, such as photos, music, video clips and more.

This is our way of showing our appreciation to you for being a valued Hotmail customer.

But if you want even more space than 250 MB, or want to send large files, such as videos, songs and slideshows, MSN Hotmail Plus, with 2 GB of storage and 20MB attachment size, might be just what you are looking for.

I can finally get my friends to send large files to my hotmail account.
But I still prefer Gmail.


Technorati: hotmail

Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients

The list of Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients has been released and "President Bush will honor these recipients at a White House ceremony on Wednesday, November 9, 2005."

From the list, there are some notable names worth pointing out...

Muhammad Ali - The legend in the boxing ring.
Vinton Cerf - Father of the Internet, recently hired by Google.
Alan Greenspan - The economics professor and Federal Reserve Chairman.
General Richard B. Myers - Very "popular" man on TV during the Afghanistan and Iraq War.
Paul Rusesabagina - Think Hotel Rwandan.


You can see the full list here.

Microsoft / IDSA PC Design Competition

This competition is long gone... but worth knowing (there are some cool designs there also)
http://www.startsomethingpc.com/
We can see that Microsoft is now obsessed with design.

Windows Live Ideas (Updates)

Important stuff we found out:

1. Microsoft's Live.com Demo was complete CRAP.

The net went down in the middle of the demo. It was the worst public
demo ever. Permanent link to this item in the archive.

An hour into it they finally start the demo. The screen is blank, the
guy is talking. It's live.com. The demo didn't work. A total demo
disaster.

Doesn't work with Firefox. Screen shot.

ok... on the other hand, its good that Microsoft is paying attention to Firefox, not like a few yaers back where they purposely used a different style sheet for Opera Web Browser with regards to MSN.com to make the page look weird on Opera. Read this.

2. According to the people behind Windows Live Messenger,

MSN Messenger 7.5 is the last version of the IM client that will wear the MSN brand. The next one will wear Windows Live.

3. An good and short account of what happened at the Microsoft Live demo event.


Technorati: windows live

iSmell

iSmell is an iPod parody advertisement.

30Gigs.com (Updates)

This follows on from our previous post. We think that there are some stuff readers might want to be aware of.

1) We have some doubts on 30Gigs team's ability to code. With reference to a packetstorm advisory, we can see that there was actually a flaw (or was it on purpose?) in their invite system.

2) According to our whois of 30gigs.com, we know that

Administrative Contact:
Gigs, 30 bugs@30gigs.com
Thona Network
9200 milliken ave
Suite 4303
rancho cucamonga, California 91730

If you are interested to see where this place is, its here on Google Maps.


Technorati: 30gigs, 30gigs.com

Windows Live Ideas

Today sees the introduction of a new Microsoft service called Windows Live Ideas.

But this idea is not new... infact, this idea is very similar to what Yahoo and Google are doing. Also, Windows Live (http://www.live.com) seems to be a clean up of My MSN.

Also, read what the Microsoft Team has to say on their live.com blog.

Technorati: windows live

30Gigs.com (Updates)

30Gigs.com has suddenly taken the IT world by storm...
30Gigs.com claims to offer 30 gigabtypes of email space... wow... stop and think... thats 12 times what Google currently offers (2.5 GB).

But lets get the facts straight first

1. 30Gigs.com appears to use SquirrelMail Stable Series 1.4
Check http://www.30gigs.com/mail/ChangeLog
Also see proof below:

2. A certain source of mine claims that 30Gigs has been online for about 2 months? And that originally it was just a few lines of text and what we see today is a huge improvement?

3. How on earth are they going to pay for this? Even with the best compression algorithm out there... its hard to see how its possible to suppost such a free service. Allow me to quote Om Malik's blog...

I tracked down the man behind the company, Dan Saltzman, spoke to him, on his Louisiana area-code phone #, but did not get too satisfactory answers on this. When I asked him, how they are going to pay for it, he said, “we have a method of paying for it.”

But that is not the end of the story... 30Gigs write on its main page (after you login)

Notice: We are in the process of adding new servers to our network, so you may experience delays. You may also encounter errors when trying to read and send mail. Please be patient as we complete this upgrade. Thank you.

4. According to 30Gigs's developement blog,

a) Anonymous email, the ability to press "send as anonymous" instead of send.
Is this not very dangerous? Think SPAM! And what if your email get filtered out?

b) GD2 Geo targeting which will show you on a map where that email you just got came from.
Wow... how accurate is this? Trace IP?

c) FILE UPLOAD SYSTEM .... There will be a 600 meg limit for uploaded files via this system.
I admit... that is a lot of space... sufficient to upload the contents of 80% of a CD ROM... (or ISO file)... but how feasible is this? (Also note: Although 30Gigs offers 30 GB... you can only send 2 MB of attachments [think PHP default configuration upload_max_filesize]) But I think it is also time for Google to provide webhosting (or maybe they think its not feasible?).

d) and they also claim that they are considering...
30Gig web hosting. This will include 30 gigs of transfer and 30 gigs of space. Mysql and ftp access will be included.
I think this is sufficient to make 50% of the world's web hosting service poof!

5) Their copyright information... available at http://www.30gigs.com/copyright/
Comprehensive enough to protect them?

6) Their privacy information ... available at http://www.30gigs.com/privacy/

We use outside ad companies to display ads on our site. These ads may contain cookies. While we use cookies in other parts of our web site, cookies received with banner ads are collected by our ad company, and we do not have access to this information.

It really seems that 30Gigs is trying to copy tactics from Google - Email invites, Email Notifier, Ads-based revenue, etc.

7) This email service is PHP based! Google, Microsft and Yahoo don't use PHP! Why? How safe is it? Is SquirrelMail hack proof?

8) We also did a whois on http://whois.godaddy.com. It provided us the following details:

Registrant:
Thona Network

9200 milliken ave
Suite 4303
rancho cucamonga, California 91730
United States

For full information, see for yourself here.



My verdict? Is this a scam? I don't know (unlikely). I think it is safe to wait and see what happens.
I just tried sending an email from my 30Gigs account to Gmail, and it works! (It should work, but someone complained to me that it could not work.)

Technorati: 30gigs, 30gigs.com

Nexuiz

Today... we are looking at a not-so-well-known game called Nexuiz...
what makes it different from other opensource games is that it has cool graphics...



Currently... I don't have the time to test this out...
but from what I gather...
1. its quite lag unless turns off the features like shadows etc.
2. the game has been in developement for 3 years...
3. it runs on windows, linux, mac...
4. if you need problems... go to the forum



Overall... its a game worth checking out.

Publish as PDF or XPS in Office 12

Office 12 will have a feature to allow save as to PDF or XPS. (see screenshot below)

XPS, or the XML Paper Specification, is Microsoft’s new electronic paper format for exchanging documents in their final forms.

In addition,

The Windows Digital Documents team is delivering a print driver with Windows Presentation Foundation that will enable all applications that can print to create XPS files.

Ah... some really cool improvements...
Read Jeff Bell's blog to find out more.

The Phi Beta Kappa Society

We know there is the famous Phi Beta Kappa Society....

so we decided to do a little more research on the popular use of such Greek letters...

Apparently... we found that there is also the...
Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity
Gamma Phi Beta International Sorority
Gamma Beta Phi Society
Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc.
Beta Sigma Phi Online
Delta Lambda Phi National Social Fraternity
Alpha Beta Gamma (International honor society)
Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity
.... [and the list continues forever]

well... Greek letters make the world go round...

WiMAX - The future is here

WiMAX is one of the fastest growing emerging sectors within the world’s telecoms industry, with the global market potential estimated to be worth up to $1bn in 2007 and $4bn by 2010, according to recent research from analyst firm Maravedis.

From Vnunet

Remarkably true...
WiMAX has the potential to enable entire cities to go wireless. Imagine by 2010, we have the whole of San Francisco, Singapore, New York City, Taipei wireless!
As the technological tide rises, we go with the trend and ride the tide.

Star Wars Halloween Masks

We think this is very funny...

Presenting... Allan Greenspan as Yoda!
Allan Greenspan a wise old sage? like Yoda? hm... maybe Yoda is just a little too green.

To find out more, check out this Forbes article.

Post-it Software

What happens when you cross a Post-it® Note with a computer? Post-it® Software Notes - the classic yellow note designed for your PC!
(I understand this is quite "old", but fyi only.)

30Gigs.com

For those who thinks that Gmail's 2.6 GB is insufficient... you might want to try 30gigs. Yes, 30GB of email storage!

Pico Satellites

The first European satellite to be designed and built by students has launched successfully from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia's northern spaceport.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/27/students_get_high/
One more small step for a man, but a big step for mankind.

REST

REST is a term coined by Roy Fielding in his Ph.D. dissertation to describe an architecture style of networked systems. REST is an acronym standing for Representational State Transfer.

I understand that this stuff may sound abstract, but it is useful (and practical).
This page gives a good summary of what REST is.
While this page gives you the actual dissertation by Roy Fielding, which he calls "Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures"

REST is fundametally useful... because it is a "lightweight" approach, as compared to heavier models such as SOAP. In fact, it is much simple to implement REST than SOAP.