Technology – Page 29

Listening to NU-107 at E-RadioPortal.com

In as much as I would like to join the Kill Bill’s Browser bandwagon, there are just certain sites that doesn’t support the fantastic firefox.

Just like this one, being outside the country I have been longing to listen to Philippine radio stations, especially my favorite NU 107. I have long visited e-radioportal.com only to find out the links appear to be broken or defective. Until just today, when I tried accessing it through Bill Gate’s browser, the Internet Explorer, and everything seems fine.

The site uses Windows Media Player to stream the audio from these stations, and it’s only compatible with internet explorer (IE). The thing is the web developer of the site couldn’t even make the site compatible for most web developers’ favorite browser, the mozilla firefox? O c’mon, you can do better than that!

Technology At Hand

Me and my housemates are as well consumed by the latest technology trends,especially when it comes to Nokia mobile phones and Apple Ipods. None of us, though, has yet seen the “cool” factor in an Apple iphone. Otherwise, it should have been in the picture.

In the picture above are two Nokia N95, a Nokia ~~N83~~ N80, a Nokia N71, an 80Gb Apple Ipod with casing, and three (3) 30Gb Ipods.

Taken with a Canon EOS 30D, EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, and Canon Speedlite 430EX.

The Scammers In Your e-Mail

You might have also already received emails from unknown persons just like this one I received not too long ago:

DEAR FRIEND,

AS THE LAWYER OF THE EXECUTED EX-PRESIDENT SADDAM HUSSIEN, I WOULD WANT THIS PIECE OF INFO REMAIN CONFIDENTIAL BECAUSE OF THE POWERS THAT BE.

ACTUALLY I WOULD WANT TO INVEST SOME OF THIS MY LATE CLIENT’S LARGE FUND THAT IS STATCHED AWAY OUTSIDE IRAQ HAVING LOST HIS TWO SONS WHO ARE AUTOMATIC HEIR APPARENT TO THE FUND.

ENDEVIOUR TO GET BACK TO ME FOR DETAILS IF YOU ARE A GOOD INVESTOR OR HAVE A COMPANY WE CAN INVEST ON THAT CAN CONTAIN THE FUND WITHOUT THE FUND RAISING EYEBROW BECAUSE AS AM WRITING YOU THIS PIECE,AM IN OUTSIDE IRAQ AT COSY PLACE IN AFRICA WHERE AM FREE.

AS I HAVE PERFECTED THIS TO BE 100% RISK FREE, YOU CAN SEND ME REPLY TO;
[email protected] FOR SECURITY REASONS.

FAITHFULLY,
NAJEEB AL-NU’AIMI

Of course, for the likely victim who would bite into this bait, they will be requested to send money to the scammers to process whatever needs to be processed, and eventually the money will be gone.

But, behold, at what this genius guy done to “Scam the Scammers” over at ~~PWiT (Philippine Week in Tech)~~. I’ll assure you a hilarious read:

~~Part I – Scamming the Scammer~~
~~Part II – Scamming the Scammer, Part 2: Plan B~~

Update: PWiT has been down for decades.

Yahoo! Mail Offers Are Here

Selaplana broke this news today.

I remembered my previous posts regarding Yahoo! Mail here and here. I instantaneously opened my Yahoo! Mail today and guess what I found:

Yahoo! Mail Kaboom!
I switched back to the new Yahoo! Mail beta and more surprises:

Checking out further, however, my other Yahoo! Mail accounts are not yet upgraded with these features. As what Yahoo! mentioned in its blog, they will be rolling out these features over a few months, so it will hit each account one by one. You just have to wait and check your inbox regularly.

So, what do I think of these new developments? I think it’s cool! Any further comments? No! :LOL:

Now, That is What I Call Speed

Whoa! We just upgraded our internet connection to a 2Mbps plan and so far we got this actual speed from speakeasy:

Internet Speed

Now, isn’t that great. So far, we haven’t experienced any buffering while watching youtube videos!

For how much? 400 Qatari Riyals (about USD 110) per month. That’s a lot of money, huh? I’m just glad we are 5 in the house to share with the cost.

But it’s a great experience. Looking forward to someday find myself cry in exasperation when I’m back to reality with slower DSL internet connection, hopefully not back to dial-up though…..:)

HSBC-Qatar Banking Experience

When we were new in Qatar, we were scouting for a bank that can accomodate our banking needs especially for payroll account purposes. A legion of the banks here offer high levels of average maintaining balance, until we found out about the service by Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC). HSBC offered no (zero/nil) maintaining balance for employees of pre-determined employers, and our employer was one of them. So we grabbed that opportunity and eventually learned about its lousy service.

It is one of the slowest, if not the slowest internet banking site.
Its CSR presumes you know nothing, and I mean nothing, about internet banking. They won’t believe this and that error happened when you performed this and that transaction.
You can’t transfer QR 1,000 or more in a single transaction even to your another HSBC account. Even when paying your credit card bills online, you need to repeat the transfers if your bill reached QR 1,000.
Their system doesn’t recognize if you have already paid your credit card bill before the due date. They will autodebit your current account (except if you have nil balance) on the due date for the amount of the bill, even if you have paid it already in full prior to that day.
No real-time detail of credit card purchases. You still have to wait for your billing statement to examine the details of your credit card purchases.
More. I know there are more, but that I can’t remember them now. I’ll just have to update this or post in another entry in the future.

Youtube Video Awards

Youtube recently held this Youtube Video Awards 2006, and they have announced the winners already.

2006 was a pioneering year for online video, user-created content and the YouTube community. You let us into your bedrooms, created new forms of entertainment, and radicalized popular culture. Now it’s time to reflect on what a tremendous year it was and recognize the best of the best during the first YouTube Video Awards.

These are actually for original videos by individuals. Awards were given to six videos in six categories. Obviously, ithey’re in youtube. So for the benefit of the readers whose only access to the internet is their office where youtube is blocked, I’ve included a short review of the winning videos below:

Most Creative

Entitled “Here it Goes Again,” a video of four people dancing to the beat of the song that I think is also entitled “Here it Goes Again”. What made this video so unique is that they were dancing to the flow of 8 tread mills running at like 5 kilometers per hour (?). You’ll be amazed by their movements, it must have took them quite some time to practice!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv5zWaTEVkI]

Best Comedy

Smosh Short 2: Stranded – is a story of young man stranded in an island together with two of his friends, where they had nothing to eat, until they decided to just eat each other.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCd_i7wW87Q]

Best Commentary

Hotness Prevails – Well, just listen to this half-naked guy and what he can say and be entertained.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-rcjaBWvx0]

Best Series

Ask a Ninja – In this series, the ninja explains podcasting to people over the age of 12.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEmss2lg-ug]

Best Music Video

Say It’s Possble – It’s that girl with a guitar playing in front of a camera. It’s cool! She rockz!!!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARHyRI9_NB4]

Most Inspirational

Free Hug Campaign – The video claims to be a true story. He spread the free hug around, maybe for peace or something, I’m not exactly sure.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4]

Most Adorable

Kiwi! – is an animated video of a…well… Kiwi, just like that one you find in a brand of shoe polish…..whatever….the video can actually rival that of walt disney…:)

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdUUx5FdySs]

These are actually the winners in their category. But you can still find the runner-ups just as amazing and entertaining. Head over to the Awards Home for more videos. For me, though, I think I’ll dig deeper into the Most Creative category because I discovered a lot more great videos in there just like the one below:

Hyperactive

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9698TqtY4A]

Yahoo! Mail Will Integrate YM

Beginning Monday, some Yahoo Mail users will be able to chat in real time through their e-mail program. Yahoo said in November that it would embed instant-messaging technology directly into its Yahoo Mail program so that users wouldn’t have to open up–or even install–Yahoo Messenger or another IM ,service to chat with each other online.

From CNET

It appears that Yahoo! is ready to compete head to head against the mighty Google, huh! (with the latter’s Gmail chat). I wonder if it can function well against the firewall here in the office. I’m looking forward to trying this new feature though, and I’m excited on how it will look like within Yahoo! Mail.

Yet, this news will “never” alter my preference of using Gmail over Yahoo! Mail. And the reason is up in my next posts!

4GB Pocket Flash Drive

Just got myself a new Imation USB2.0 Pocket Flash Drive, a 4GB one, as a replacement for my old 256mb generic flash drive I bought 2 years ago from CD-R King in Glorieta, Makati.

The old flash drive malfunctioned after I pulled it off the usb port while my notebook was busy writing/reading it (another lesson learned!). I grew impatient and pulled it off without following the safety removal process of the hardware.

Anyway, this new one (Imation), with its 4gb capacity, I can use to hold my Uniserver, as well as tons and tons of my documents. Yet, it’s compact and lightweight.

But what I liked most about this pocket flash drive is the password protection and drive partitioning software provided within the product. Unlike truecrypt, it doesn’t require an administrator privilege anymore to access the secured partition of the drive.

Searching Conrado Valix

Yeah, sounds like a movie (Searching Bobby Fischer). I should have changed the title to “Googling Conrado Valix”. Nah, nevermind.

I was wondering of late why there were just too many people who maybe were lost in the cyberspace and found their way to my entry regarding the Financial Accounting I, 2006 Edition by Atty. Conrado Valix and Jose Peralta. These visitors are mostly students from schools in different parts of the country (Philippines), who are (maybe) fanatics of Atty. Valix (okay, I am a fan myself). My blog was even mistaken for a fan site or something like that.

Then, I tried googling for the keyword “Conrado Valix” and guess what I discovererd:

Google – No. 1 in the search result page.
Yahoo! – No. 1 in the search result page.
MSN – No. 3 in the search result page.

Refining the search query yielded in a more interesting result. For a keyword “Financial Accounting by Conrado Valix”, my site ranked simply number one in all the big three search engine sites! (Note that these results change over time)

So that explains it, huh!

That should surely explain The J Spot’s entry on “Why Celebrities Should Blog“. He also cited another reason here.

Conrado Valix, being a public figure especially to accountants from college students to professionals, should start blogging. By this manner, it will pave the way at which students and professionals alike can contact him. It can be a ground where he can solicit feedbacks from readers of is “renowned” books on accounting.

Nonetheless, it’s even more ironic to note that CPAR (CPA Review School of the Philippines), being an established institution in the world of Filipino Accountants where Atty. Valix is one of the founders and the current director, doesn’t have a website (I think I’ve already said before). It’s one of the review centers that has produced and is still producing the best accountants in the country (or maybe even in the whole world), and yet it doesn’t yet have a space in the world wide web. (Or maybe it has, but it was not just optimized for search engines, I don’t know. If that’s the case, time to hire an SEO professional.) Imagine just how many students are maybe searching for its site everyday. Thus, maybe lost reviewees (and revenue).

Access to internet nowadays are becoming more widespread and cheaper. One should really reevaluate its marketing strategy.

(What do you think Domeng? –if you read this post)