Insightful, Hopeful

I was surprised to see a verification box upon sending an email from my Yahoo account to another Yahoo account. The verification box is the same as that when you register an account to a site or a forum. But upon sending another email, the box didn't appear. I am guessing it only appears in emails that contains generic subject lines. My first email's subject was "Re: hello".

I appreciate Yahoo's effort. At least I am now confident that my emails would not end up in the bulk folder of its recipients.

The open-source productivity suite made its debut last week, October 21, 2005. This new release boasts of advanced XML capabilities, a database module, and improved PDF support. It also supports the internationally standardized OpenDocument format.

The project was built by volunteer developers and backed by bigtime sponsors such as Sun Microsystem, Intel, Novell, and Red Hat. They collaborated to create and market the Open Office suite, together with an independent group of professionals.

The new software supports the following OS: Windows GNU/Linux, Sun Solaris and Mac OS X.

Download Open Office 2.0 at http://www.openoffice.org/.

Source :
Tech News World

Had fun playing the Crimson Room with my officemates. This game was created by Toshimitsu Takagi in 2004. The objective of the game is to find items around the room and eventually escape the room.

You can try it through the official website. The next game created by Takagi is called Viridian Room, which is so much harder. Have fun!

Being the IT hub that it is, India now has recycling centers for used computers. "E-wastes", as they are called, could be hazardous to health when certain parts of a computer are taken out through unsafe means like burning or boiling.

Though the Philippines is not as nearly e-polluted as India, I hope we too could adapt something like this.

Full story at the BBC Technology section: "India's poor tackle toxic e-waste"

I was ecstatic last week when I found a Kodak Printing Kiosk I saw some time ago that was now fully functional. The kiosk was located inside a convenience store in San Juan called "Your Friendly Neighborhood Store".That time, the power cord was unplugged so I thought it was broken. I still took a good look and found it interesting that one could upload pictures through different means. It had a CD-rom drive, floppy disk drive, slot for different kinds of memory card. One could also send pictures via infrared and bluetooth.

An attendant was there to assist in transferring your photos. As with most kiosk, this too had a touch screen input. Since my Sony Ericsson k500i phone only got infrared, it took almost 5 minutes before I was able to upload a pic, taken from my brother's Nokia 6670, whose file size was 203kb and had a dimension of 1152x864. The other pictures I uploaded which were taken using my phone were faster to upload as they were less than 40kb, and had dimensions of 320x240 and 640x480.

The smaller resolution pictures needed enhancing and the software installed in the machine allowed just that. It also cropped and centered pictures to a frame, and displayed an alert sign beside photos that needed editing.

You could print up to 4 photos in one 4R sized photo paper. Because most of the photos I uploaded were small in size, I opted for this. Each printing costs Php35. When you think about it, it would seem costly. But I think the ink used here is similar to PC printer ink, hence the price.

It would be nice to have this in the provinces, especially on tourist spots. So tourists can immediately print their photos when a Photo Developing center is not available.

 (Displayed photo courtesy of wangjianshuo's blog)

I watched Pinoy Big Brother today, and at the end of the show they featured the interview of interview of Cassandra, Uma and Sam. This is to end the rumors regarding the immediate entry of the said housemates without having gone through the screening process. A good move on the part of ABS without causing much stir.

Got this forwarded email today from one of my officemates. I don't know if it is true, but if it is, could pass as another "Hello Garci" scandal. But it could also be is a scheme from the reality tv's rivals and detractors. Read on.

Ipinatawag ni Ms. Linggit Tan sina UMA at CASS together with Ms. Carol E., Mr. Pablito B. and Director Lawrence Dyogi (The Voice Behind BIG BROTHER).

Uma - Yes, Mam,

Ms. Liggit Tan - Yes we are working for that. Basta do your best, UMA and CASS. Tapos if ever my na force evict sa mga housemate, papasukin naming si SAM. Ok?

Ms. Linggit Tan - OK na? here's the money 10,000.00 para makabalik ka sa Davao, inform your parent about this ok?

Director Dyogi - CASS, UMA, basta pag nomination na pagpasok niyo sa confession room, nakalista sa likod ng camera kung sino ang i-vo-vote out niyo, kayo na lang ang magbibigay ng rason

Know The Fact!!!

UMA - Is a model and talent of ABS-CBN and MS. Charo Santos Concio's Personal Favorite

----- SO si BOB, RAQUEL, JB, RICO, NENE, FRANZEN, CHX, SAY at si JAYSON ay pawang mga BIKTIMA ng PINOY BIG BROTHER!!! ---- Tunghayan ang mga susunod na pangyayari sa bahay ni kuya. Ang lahat na ito ay nai-record naming sa isang CD, na may kasamang larawan (picture) na nagpapatunay na niloloko lang tayo ng ABS-CBN at pamunuan ng BIG BROTHER. Ito po ay ilalabas namin, pagkatapos ng PINOY BIG BROTHER o sa kaukulang panahon.

Sources (MS. Carol E, Mr. Pablito B and MAY)

Finally got new mp3s :) Thanks to Mims for downloading my requests and sending it to me via YouSendIt . This was a file sharing site she was fond of, despite my prodding that she send the files to my gmail account. Instead of sending files as email attachments, file sharers would upload the files and an email would be sent to the file recipient containing a link where the file could be downloaded. The link is active for 7 days, enough time to download a file.

The site brought into mind a similar service I used some time ago: Streamload. I used it to swap anime mp3s, back when I was addicted to anime soundtracks. The difference is I had to download a Windows application for me to be able to upload and download files. I also had to create an account to be able to share files with other streamload users. It can also be used as a backup storage for your files. I found this review from PC World which gives the pros and cons of this service.

Last Monday, I got a mild migraine attack again, and it was very hard for me to concentrate on what I was doing. It was like my reflexes were numb, and I everything was in slow motion. I wanted to know if this was normal so I tried searching in the migraines newsgroup.

Interestingly, I found this link to a booklet written by a dentist, explaining the root cause of most migraines. The title of the booklet is Splitting the Headache.

Most of it actually makes sense. Dr. Jim Boyd, the booklet's author, said that too much teeth clenching while you're asleep is the culprit. He is selling a device that would help prevent the clenching. But too bad it is not available locally.

Speaking of health sites, I am pleased that the Deparment of Health website is updated. The main page has links to information about Bird flu and other important information. It even has a News Monitoring page where you can download health-related news in pdf format. My only comment is that the pdf contents were not scanned symmetrically, thus the pages are not of the same size.
The site is at least a sign that the government (specifically DOH) do care for the people's well-being by providing relevant information. Before I used to be quite envious of health sites produced by the government of other countries like the US MedlinePlus and Australia's Better Health Channel. I hope next time the DOH site would also include information on common diseases in the Philippines and the local medicines suitable for each.

I would like to share a tip for Windows 2000 users (this is my OS in the office).

Sometimes, you would want to get a file from a website, most probably a video or audio clip but the file is embedded and is not visible on the page. Or the case maybe that the Save As button is not available from the menu when we right click the item.

One way to get the clip would be to right click on the page, click View Source, and search for the link of the file amidst the html tags.
But the easier way to get the file is by going to your Internet Explorer temp folder and searching for the file since everytime we visit a site, the files loaded are automatically saved in the Temp folder. 

This is the folder of the Temp files :
"C:Documents and Settings\YourLoginName\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5"

Note: YourLoginName is the one you use when logging on to Windows.