The Nintendo Wii..

The first thing that comes to my mind is the Wheee! Firefox flick by Jeff Gill. Except this time the IE logo is replaced by the Nintendo Wii logo... and the other logo's are of the other gaming consoles. Although it might have better features, this is just how I feel about this console (and the same infact). But it's too early to say something, I guess all of us have to wait and see what happens to Wii.

Update: Okay, so the Wii has officially been launched, and I hereby conclude that it is no longer a crappy console, and it's name is totally misleading. In fact, the truth is, it's actually a really great console. After playing around with for a while at my friend's house, I think I can say that I'm in love with it. If I have more time, and some dough, I might actually invest in this gem of a console myself, but sadly that is not the cast at this moment. But I'm actually hoping that I can do so and hopefully also write up a review of the Nintendo Wii, in case anyone is interested!

Squeet Vs FeedBlitz

It recently came to my attention that Feedburner has been promoting Squeet on some feeds and FeedBlitz on some. Both basically do the same - notify you when there is a new post on a website or a blog.

I'm using both of them right now and there seem to be evident problems in each of them. For example Squeet's CSS is not to my tastes... although this isn't a flaw I think they should have a better design and layout in their e-mails that they send. And as for Feedblitz, they're e-mails always seem to be outdated and they have that big logo of theirs as well. If I post something today I'll get a e-mail tomorrow (well midnight anyways) as opposed to Squeet which gives you the e-mails after about 3 hours or so.

I'll be back with more interesting data as soon as I use these two after a while of course. I'm not the kind of reviewer that likes to post something without taking a look at the product properly. Unlike Lifehacker... okay, I'll stop picking on them now.

The IE Blunder

Update: If things like this happen then I guess Microsoft might have wasted their time after all...

I think it can now be safely said, in hindsight, that Microsoft's entry into the browser business and its subsequent linking of the browser into the Windows operating system looks to be the worst decision - and perhaps the biggest, most costly gaffe - the company ever made. I call it the Great Microsoft Blunder.

I couldn't have said it better... I think Dvorak has an excellent point here, but I think he forgot that almost 80% of the people in this world probably use IE, and it would be a shame if Microsoft pulls the plug and stops making it.

Hell, I don't think many even care about which browser they are using... all they do is click on the 'e' logo and type in the URL of the website. So I guess it's more sensible for Microsoft to make it, rather than stop making it and dissapoint the people.

Besides they've got some Indians working on it (over at my old hometown in Bangalore I think), so I guess it doesn't really cost them much to keep the updates coming.

Business Registration

Over here in Ontario there are many things that are necessary to make a business, or that's what my teacher says. Basically you need to have a license in order to have a business. And along with that you need to have a great understanding of taxes. Here's the great article over at about.com that my teacher pointed out a while ago. It is great in terms of explaining the processes that go on when creating a business. Although they don't talk about the tricks of business I think it is a great so make sure you read it.

No More Green

Today I took 5 minutes off hectic schedule to remove most of the green (almost all of the green) in this site. Many of my friends (especially Nishant) were complaining about the amount of dark green in the site, so I decided to get rid of it. Of course this is just temporary until summer starts but at least now it isn't overcrowded with green. Along with that I also made the font size larger so that people can at least read it now. And since I usually practice what I preach I followed what I said in this post, along with keeping the web 2.0 design trend in mind.

Hopefully you can use this until I get the time to go fix things up and have a better design.

My Business

In my business course right now we are creating a business as our final project for this year. For my business I decided to create a business like businesslogs except my business is going to be for anyone who wants to get websites, brochures, logos and flyers designed by us (or me, since I'm the only one involved in this fictional business).

This business is named 'Media PowR' since I wanted to include R in there somewhere. Plus I don't think there is any business by that name, although this has to be verified. Although my name isn't exactly perfect (at least according to this post by my friend) because there are 2 business called media power however it is inevitable to get a business name that is not taken by someone so I think this should do for now, unless other problems pop up.

Todays thoughts

Great news, now you can get a newer version of the great performancing extension from the mozilla site. This version has many new features, out of which the one the one that stands out is the Metrics feature which now seamlessly integrates with one's metrics tracking account. Great stuff, I can't seem to stop using this extension now (especially since I don't seem to get the atom error now)! Along with that and the other features, the feature that I like a lot is uploading picture right from the extension! A feature that Jed said that he was going to put a while back. Although I've not tried this for blogger yet I think it should work (hopefully).

I was also trying out the Wizz RSS News Reader instead of NetNewsWire or Sage today and that seems to be pretty good as well. More on that later.

Now let's talk about something that we all love (or atleast us Canadians anyways), Hockey! Here are my predictions for the first round (since the playoffs start today). The following teams are going to be advancing: Philly, Dallas, San Jose, Ottawa, Carolina, New Jersey, Detroit and lastly the Flames. Although Montreal and Edmonton are awesome Canadian teams I'm not quite sure if they are going to make it, but keep an eye on Montreal they seem to be extra hot right now. You might say that this might not be true, but I'm quite sure that these are the teams that are going to advance to the text round, and we'll find out soon enough.

Busy with school

I've been so busy with school lately that I don't find enough time to blog. In business we have a project in which we need to create our own business. And the interesting thing (also the downside) is that all the students also need to go through the process (such as getting a website, trademark etc) as well. Of course this is just fictional however we do need to submit the things to our teacher.

Along with this there are also projects in other subjects that we are taking such as drama, science, geography, english, gym and french. I guess this is the biggest minus point of going to a semistred school. But that's going to change next year. So sorry folks if I don't blog (and write articles at other sites that I've been asked to write for) all that much, you can blame the curriculum and the teachers, it's all their fault.

Its not design

Every now and then I wonder why some websites/blogs are more successful than others. And why some people make more money off website than others... Usually the first thing that pops up into my mind was that successful blog design leads to a successful blog, and the same goes for websites as well. But now after looking around a bit deeper, I've realized that DESIGN IS NOT A FACTOR. It doesn't matter how your blog or site looks, the only thing that matters is what you have in your site. This article/note to self basically goes against the list (and what is said) over at Elliot's site, but I'm sure it makes perfect sense.

For example lets take a look at problogger.net. The design is good no doubt (okay may be not all that much) but can you believe that this guy made 10,000 dollars once (not from this site only of course)? Only from ad sense and chitika revenue. I'm pretty sure that its the content of the blog.

Now, I'm not saying that design doesn't play a big role, so don't get me wrong. I believe that a design of a site is essential in 'first impressions', but after that it's just content. Thats all people look at.

An interesting thing that I've realized untill now is that according to my knowledge (a.k.a. guessing abilities) chances are that 70% of the people in this world aren't tech all that savy savvy. Although this might change it is not like that right now. And due to this, people might not be aware of the trends that make a good design (i.e. have different views on what makes a good design). So, my point is that since these people don't really don't know about a design, chances are they don't care about it either (like ebay and Myspace.com- people still use them to this day).

So the only thing that it comes down to is content and perhaps readability (probably the only part of design that us web developers/designers need to be aware of). Which would mean that you can still have a great site, without a great design, provided that you have great content.

I don't say that ugly sells, content sells. So I think the most important thing that web developers (or people who want to start up a web site for that matter) need to do is put the readers first, just like Donald trump's dad (according to what he said on apprentice tonight- his dad talked to the people who were going to use the building and know about their needs). This way they can focus on the content (i.e. priorities of the people) without worrying much about the design in order to create a successful site.

If you disagree, feel free to use the comments section to prove me wrong! However I'm quite sure that you are going to agree with me.

Today's Tab Tips

I don't know about other people but to me tabs are a very essential part of my life (okay may be not life, but you get the idea right). I always open new web pages in tabs instead of opening new windows. Essentialls tabs helps you switch from one page to another more quickly and doesn't crowd your desktop (or taskbar), which is excellent if you are using windows (you don't have to worry about this in a mac because it has expose).

Almost all browsers (except Internet Explorer 6) seem to support tabs, if you don't know what they are and how useful they can be, you should definately read this page, and while you are at it, make sure to get a better browser than IE 6 (even IE 7 will do). This way you too can enjoy the power of tabs.
Here are some tips that you can use while using tabs:

• In most browsers with tabs you can just middle click (clicking using the scroll wheel on your mouse, if you have one) to open tabs.
• To close tabs you can use the middle click as well!
• If you are using firefox then make sure to get the tab mix plus extension so that you can get some extra things (such as a close button for every tab) and so on.
• If you are using safari then you might want to take a look at this post in binary bonsai. I highly recommend getting Taboo as well.
• Use Ctrl+T to open up a new tab if you need one, this can save you a considerable amount of time while doing things.
  

firefox, safari, tabs, Microsoft, internet explorer, browsers

I don't like 1.5.0.2

I usually like Firefox, but this build... not so much (excecpt on the intel mac mini). Perhaps when you look at this build from a vulnerability standpoint then it's good. however after I installed 1.5.0.2, I lost all my Sage Feeds!! Along with that I also lost all the links on my bookmark toolbar. And whenever I open up Firefox, it opens in a weird size, which is not the way I prefer my windows. The other things like Spellbound and so on still work though. And I'm quite sure it's not my fault.

Well it might just be me, but this has to stop, I mean I have like 250 Feeds in Sage. Not cool if you loose them. From now on I think I'll just start using things like Bloglines and Del.icio.us and start using the Gmail drive shell extension, just in case things like this start happening again.

Catching up with posts

Okay I admit that I had a little break and you might now be seeing posts that are dated April 11th and stuff like that. This is because I took a little break from blogging... every one deserves/needs a break once in a while (including Scoble) and I decided to take mine a while ago.

But fear not, those posts will be up and running in no time at all. Plus (as an added bonus) you might see a few more features that I forgot to put in last weekend.

Design for 2.0

Just recently I came across this great blog published by a fellow Indian, that talks about Web 2.0 and how to make your website look web 2.0. He's definately got some great tips over there, and I'll be sure to include it in my next redesign (which is going to be very soon).

However one of the most important things that Ganesh forgot to mention is Ajax, which is key in any web 2.0 design, but I'm sure it just slipped his mind (this is usual for me when I tend to write long articles I usually forget key points, but usually add them later). But it doesn't really matter all that much I guess. Hmm... it looks like I'm wrong in this point actually, because Ganesh in the comments has clarified that a piece of code doesn't have anything to do with design. I guess I was wrong in mistaking integration with the site design and design, but now I understand that they are two different things. Silly me.

You definitely need to take a look at his blog, and the article. And if you want your website to be Web 2.0 certified, make sure you check out Certifyr.com (and fyi beyondteck is 88% Web 2.0 Compliant according to certifyr...!

web_2.0, web 2.0, technology, Microsoft, AJAX, articles

Adium Update

Looks like Adium (or Adium X) was updated. Now of course Adium isn't the messenger I use most (I use Trillian + Windows Live Messenger a lot), but people seem to dearly love Adium over iChat and other things. I'm not sure why, but I've used it a couple of times and I think it is pretty good (not something to go totally nuts about). The extras are great as well... Sometimes I like the e-mail feature, which tells you when you have new e-mail and I find that this is way better than Gmail notifier (which is totally worthless).

So I'm wondering do you use Adium a lot? Or do you just prefer iChat? Just something I'm very curious about...

adium, im, update, Apple

Crowded Website Pages

Now I know that usually when you go to a website you are looking to get as much as information as possible, but what I say in this post is just how I feel regarding crowded web pages. So please do not complain about how I am totally wrong in my thinking.

Whenever I go to websites like ESPN.com or CNN.com the first thing that I see is that the web page is too crowded! I can't even count how many columns of data are on that page. It's just overwhelming. I mean common guys do you really need to display all that much data and all those banner ads? Why can't you just have 2 columns - one for navigation and one for the latest news.

Plus having things like flash etc on your website all over the page is just annoying, especially over at ESPN.com (no wonder they use up so many terabytes of bandwidth). I've got nothing against people like Mike Davidson by the way, but it's just that these news sites (and even blogs like engadget have 'bloated' (i.e. 3 columns that stretch long and wide... Really wide and have lots of annoying ads etc.) home pages.

The thing that bugs me most sometimes is the horizontal scroll bar. I use a 19" flatscreen to do work and have a dual view dual along with a old 17" CRT. And usually I use the 19" for browsing around on websites etc. And almost always I don't keep the browser window maximized so that I can work with multiple windows to increase productiveness. In such conditions the pages show a horizontal scroll bar with totally bugs me. Sometimes I hate this and just close the window and go do something else. On other times when I'm more patient I tolerate the horizontal scroll bar. I just can't imagine how life will be for people with a 800x600 resolution.

The only thing that is great (usually anyways) in such sites is the design. For example the logo's and the good graphics etc. Other than that it's just plain boring. I'd rather go use the TV (I know sometimes it does get that bad) than use the computer to find interesting news. Or just listen to the ever annoying voice (just kidding) of Steve Gibson to know about the latest security holes in Windows.

Okay I'm done complaining. You can go back to reading the latest news on ESPN or CNN.


internet, espn, CNN, news sites, webdesign, web_2.0

Adding Gloss to images

Just a quick note to tell you all that I've just recently (well a while ago) published a tutorial on tech-recipes.com on how to add the 'glossy' image effect to any image. This is a trick that lot of professionals use to do things, so that this you should take a look. Here's a brief description of what it teaches you to do.

Many professionals use this sweet technique to add the glass effect to all of their images. You to can use this glass effect for any image that you want, with these helpful tips!

photoshop, effects, tutorial, tips, tech-recipes,

School is Marks

Today I was thinking about how school and the basic objectives of school has changed. To me school is there to give us a taste of life and to develop our skills such as task and problem solving skills. It's there so that we can learn something, have fun and enjoy what we are doing (including projects and so on). But now, it's just marks. Marks. That's it!

A while ago our Science teacher was explaining the things that we were supposed to do for our science fair. Of course we were given a hand out. And it looked that the original booklet that the hand out was photocopied from was about 25 years old (I suppose some people are just too lazy to type things out themselves). In that there was a line that said, "You are doing this to know more and have fun." However instantaneously our teacher said, "You are not doing this for fun you are doing it for marks." Is that something that us grade 9 students have to worry about? No. Is that something that is going to help us? No. Except for passing marks don't have any value... At all. It's just there to see if you are doing work or not.

Teachers seriously have to stop bickering about project due dates and marks and just give us projects so that we can learn. So that we can get more organised and pace our selves to handle the pressures of work environments. But only a few teachers seem to understand that... And the numbers are getting less day by day, or atleast that's what I think.

May be it's just my school (or perhaps only this teacher in particular) and not other schools, or other teachers, but still... Marks are not the most important thing in school!

school, life, marks, teachers

Photoshoping using Elements

I usually love photoshopping using my photoshop, but when it comes to elements (especially version 1 at my school) it just doesn't cut it. The image at a left, which was supposed to be an iPod, which now looks like an advetisement for Apple (if any Apple guys are reading this please please hire me!)

If you look at the image from far away it looks like an iPod, but if you look at it from a close distance you'll notice that it's screwed up read bad. Now may be the time given to me (about an hour and a half to do this thing) was a bit too less and that's why it looks like this and it isn't Photoshop Elements. For example for the blending options in CS2 you cn just right click and select blending options however in elements you need to 3 steps. Select the layer style. Click on the logo and then change the settings which is sort of laborious and isn't a good thing when time is limited. Oh well I guess there's nothing I can do about it now is there?

macbook pro, Windows, XP, Microsoft, Apple, jokes

Boot Camp Public Beta- XP on Macs

Macs do Windows, too.

Interestingly enough Apple has finally created their long awaited software to make Macs boot windows. Which can only mean one thing... pc manufacturers watch out. Chances are that people are going to be getting Macs a lot more as opposed to the PC because the look better, and of course Apple makes one of the best windows computers. And they've also have a cool Windows logo now. So much for the 12, 000 dollars spent... trying to get XP on a mac. (by the way did they hire Dave Chappelle for the tagline?)

boot camp, macbook pro, Windows, XP, Microsoft, Apple, interesting

Strange Falling Sensation

Well I'm sure that I'm not the only one (definitely sure after reading the article) who experiences 'the strange falling sensation' while sleeping. In-fact I was thinking about that today itself when I was falling asleep. Pretty interesting to know how it happens.

This strange falling sensation and muscle twitch is known as a hypnagogic myoclonic twitch or 'hypnic jerk' If this has happened to you on more than one occasion, don't worry, you are not alone. Close to 70 percent of all people experience this phenomenon just after nodding off, according to a recent study at the Mayo Clinic.

It usually happens while I'm tired (after not sleeping for about 20 hours or so) and when my muscles are sore from playing a lot of soccer. I used to think that it was just something that the brain was recalling from your falls whenever you fell, because they do seem to be quite exactly how you might have experienced it in real life. Oh well I guess there's nothing that you can do about it, except think about it after you get up... heh now I can safely sleep knowing that I am not falling down from a 1000 story building in real life.

More storage space

It looks like I definitely need more space if I want to get more tools to play around with. Current this drive is almost full, of course there are other drives but I still want to get an extra drive, to either replace or work along with my existing drive. I would really love to get a Raptor (since they have 10, 000 RPM), but the noise factor really bugs me, so I'll probably get a barracuda (or two depending on how my mood is ) to make my rig a bit faster (for example since there's more space the drive can be defragmented more and get . I'll make sure to document the whole process, just in case any one wants to replace their drives but are a little afraid that they'll wreck their computer.

hard drive, storage, XP, Microsoft, hardware, deals

It's April fools

This year there seems to be a long list of stuff for April fool's day, and apparently I think not so many feel like doing it every single year, so my guess is that it's probably going to reduce every year. But since I'm an optimist and april fools lover, let's just hope that doesn't happen. At least not the big pranks hazardous kind of pranks that some have come across (in some point of their lives) might not be continued (unless it's a tradition).

Wikipedia has a long list of things done on 'April 1, 2006' which is most likely going to get longer as the day progresses. I seriously can't stop laughing after going through the list. If you want more, then I suggest you might want to keep an eye on digg, you never know what news is going to get posted over there.

Another one of my favorites is the 'Google Rooms' one, absolutely hilarious, I'm surprised why Google doesn't have a April fool's doodle... and think geek gets a honorable mention as well (here's a screenshot, since I figure, they are going to remove the page sooner or later), sometimes I wonder if they could get any funnier. Now let's just wait and see what comes up later on today... the day is still young (at least over here right now it's 10:49 EST) !

hilarious, pranks, smart, april fools, jokes