Gmail Rolls Out Google Buzz; Check Out What’s in Store For Everyone

Here’s another great reason why you should love and totally switch (if you haven’t yet) to Gmail. They’ve recently rolled out their newest service, the Google Buzz. (By the way, Google is gradually rolling out Buzz to everyone, so if you don’t see it in your Gmail account yet, check back soon.)

Google Buzz Landing Preview

It’s basically like Twitter, but actually better. It allows comments, likes, email. It resides right within your Gmail web interface. All you need is a Gmail account. Of course, your friends should be using Gmail the same in order for you to share thoughts, quotes, links, photos, and videos with each other.

Photos and videos are displayed inline, so you don’t have to open another window or tab. Sharing can be done publicly (and displayed to your Google profile page) or privately to a group of people or close friends only.

Comments get sent right to your inbox so it’s easy to keep up with the conversation. Of course, you can mute a certain thread in case you find your inbox full of non-sense.

Continue reading Gmail Rolls Out Google Buzz; Check Out What’s in Store For Everyone

Luminotes is Closing; Download the Windows Stand-Alone Application

It’s a sad moment for the techie world and wiki fans. The hosted service of Luminotes is closing, and you can access, export, and backup your notes from their servers until March 1, 2010 only.

According to their blog:

Luminotes.com will shut down on March 1, 2010. At that time, you will no longer be able to view or edit any notes hosted at Luminotes.com, and no further releases nor support for any Luminotes products will be available.

But of course their Windows Stand-Alone Applications — Luminotes Desktop — is out in the wild. In case the website totally shuts down after the time (March 1) and you missed to save yourself a copy of the exe file, I have a backup copy: Luminotes.exe (download). Readme file is available upon install.

POP3 Access for Yahoo! Mail Free Accounts

A POP3 access allows you to send and receive your email messages from a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, etc. A user need not login to the web interface and face hundreds of banner ads everyday, but just wait till the program fetches the mails from the background.

POP3 access (and even IMAP) has always been free when you’re using a GMail account. However, by default, for Yahoo! Mail, you will need to upgrade to at least the Yahoo! Mail Plus account (yes, you have to pay in this case) in order to avail of the POP3 access.

Fortunately, there is a workaround for this: YPOPs! Continue reading POP3 Access for Yahoo! Mail Free Accounts

Expanding WordPress Mu Functionality with Premium Plugins

For the longest time, I have been planning to build not just a website for my college organization but also a community where our fellow members can hangout and meet and greet each other while in the world wide web. I find WordPress Mu could most probably deliver at what our requirements for a functional social networking site, especially when coupled with cross login details functionality offered by BbPress and BuddyPress.

With WPMU Dev Premium account, I could possibly enhance further the functionality of the site. With 100 more plugins, themes, videos, etc. at my disposal, the possibilities are limitless. And they are constantly maintained, so you’ll be assured that they work with the latest versions of WordPress Mu, BbPress, and BuddyPress. Continue reading Expanding WordPress Mu Functionality with Premium Plugins

Create A Custom Font Style Based on Your Own Handwriting

If you are like me who’s proud of your own handwriting, no matter how bad it is, or if you’re a person who wants to experiment with the different font faces for letters and numbers, the you may want to create your own font style based on your unique handwriting.

Here’s a screenshot of my handwriting typed in MS Word using the custom font style I named “deuts-print“.

Deuts Print Font Sample (Click image to enlarge)
Deuts Print Font Sample (Click image to enlarge)

Continue reading Create A Custom Font Style Based on Your Own Handwriting

Symbian Nokia: Enhancing Speed and Performance

The Nokia E51 with the Symbian S60 Operating SystemWe have heard and read a lot about optimizing your computer performance and enhance speed in the process. But what about mobile phones? We, in one way or another, do sometimes are affected with lagging phone software processing.

Just like desktop computers, mobile phones do have operating systems (OS) as well. In the high-end Nokia phones, they’re running on Symbian S60. Then there’s Windows Mobile, Android, Blackberry OS and iPhone OS to name some of the other OS’s.

And just like in desktop computers, there are tricks as well to optimize your mobile phones’ performance. Smartin enumerated some tips on “How to Speed Up Nokia Phones with Symbian Mobile OS“, namely:

  • Install firmware update with care
  • Speed up Nokia phone with software
  • Remove unnecessary applications
  • Kill background running and autostart apps
  • Use default themes

Continue reading Symbian Nokia: Enhancing Speed and Performance

WordPress 2.8 is Here and Upgraded

Here I am at it again. Hopping directly into the new WordPress release as soon it hit the mainstream. Unmindful of things that could happen to my blog if something’s not right, or bugs that’ll definitely appear, or any of my plugins could break. I even forgot to deactivate the plugins first before proceeding with the upgrade.

The fact remains, I am a loyal WordPress user. And I loved the innovations introduced throughout the years in this favorite web platform of mine. Nevermind the bloated issue, as long as it’s working. (Just like my attitude towards Ubuntu. Yes, it’s bloated. But it works out of the box.)

Anyway, the new release offers some more enhancements. And I can’t wait to be the first to try those out. Check out the release announcement here, or watch this video: Continue reading WordPress 2.8 is Here and Upgraded

My Yahoo! Account was Hacked

Yahoo! Messenger Logo

Lately, some friends were complaining about how they were receiving spam messages from my Yahoo! account via Yahoo! Messenger (YM). It was not something new as I myself received some from other friends in my contact list. It then occured to my mind that maybe my account was hacked.

Then, yesterday I couldn’t login to my YM account anymore from my favorite desktop client, Pidgin. It tells me that logging in from the web with the same account may diagnose the problem. Continue reading My Yahoo! Account was Hacked

The Most Celebrated Video Scandal of 2009

Perhaps you reached this page hoping to get maybe even a glimpse of the video I’m talking about. Well I’m sorry to disappoint you but you won’t get to watch any video here nor get any link to the videos.

Anyway, in the recent developments, Dr. Hayden Kho expressed his apology and regret over the whole scandal in an interview by GMA Network. I wonder though, did he regret for recording the video beyond the awareness of his partner or for failure to have discovered beforehand about truecrypt?

TrueCrypt is a software application used for real-time on-the-fly encryption. It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or a device-hosted encrypted volume on either an individual partition or an entire storage device. It supports Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (using FUSE) and encrypted volumes can be made portable. The version for Windows Vista or XP can encrypt the boot partition or entire boot drive and has the ability to create and run a hidden encrypted operating system whose existence is deniable.

You may want to read about my earlier post, “Auditor and Technology; Importance of Data Security“.

Okay, don’t get me wrong. I believe that recording a video of your sexual act beyond the awareness and consent of your partner is plain “retarded-ness” at best (I mean there could be worse descriptions). And failure to secure and encrypt those stupid videos is a grave blunder.

Dreamhost Shared Hosting Servers: No WordPress Mu

Dreamhost could probably be the most popular web hosting company out there right now, with their aggressive marketing campaigns via coupon codes, their unlimited webspace and bandwidth, up-to-date server and program software and hardware, and a whole lot more features they have in the table. Add to that their cheap price.

I availed of their geocities promo lately, and got two years free domain and hosting for free.

But here’s the big turn-off. Just lately a notice was posted here saying:

NOTICE
WordPress MU is not allowed to be run on our shared hosting servers. If you intend on running this under your account, you are required to be on a Private Server.

Continue reading Dreamhost Shared Hosting Servers: No WordPress Mu