Geocities Closes Down for Good

Sadly, one of the founding fathers of free web hosting has met its doom. Geocities, a popular platform in the 90’s, offering users free web space and bandwidth for building their own community or simply a simple web page, has now crippled to Yahoo!’s losing competition with paid hosting, whereas more and more competitors offer lower prices or simply better deals. Registrations on the site have been halted and current users are encouraged to make backups of their archives before everything is completely obliterated.

My first HTML codes were placed on this site. Despite my former community being defunct, I still miss my acquaintance with particularly hard coding – which is basic HTML. I’ve met some very cool people via this site, and I know they feel the same way I do right now.

We will all miss you, Geocities. This is the end of an era, I guess. Now, let’s get back on with our lives.

The Must-have Firefox Addons

Firefox is my browser of choice – as do tens of millions of other web surfers out there do too.

One of Firefox’s best features are the multitudes of free add-ons any user could easily install. These add-ons give excitement to both Firefox users and developers. Seriously, you’ll never regret downloading these. You can even disable/uninstall them anytime if you get bored or annoyed with the features, though there’s the probability of that NOT HAPPENING. Haha.

And also, you don’t need a fast internet connection to make these goodies run efficiently… just a stable one will do.

You’re just a few clicks away from optimizing your Firefox experience. But if you’re not a Firefox user, you can download the latest version of it for free here. Here are a few of my best-picks:

• StumbleUpon – currently my favorite.  It lets you “stumble” upon various popular websites you probably haven’t visited before. Most websites you stumble into here serve offbeat but cool content.
  
• NoScript – if you doubt your antivirus/antimalware applications, you’d definitely want to install this. It blocks any sort of script that wants to make its way onto your browser (either friendly or malicious). It’s suited for the people who surf new sites a lot.
  
• iMacros – suited for the busybodies out there. iMacros lets you preempt the need for passwords by automating a designated username and password for websites like Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. Repetitive tasks are simplified by this dandy application
  
• Fasterfox – this add-on is amazing. It boosts browsing speeds by more than 150%. A definite must-have for the snail surfer.
  
• DownThemAll – a very nifty download manager that supports pause/resume capabilities. I’ve downloaded most of my MMORPGs with this baby and it rarely fails me.
  
• Brief – if you’re a big fan RSS feeds, this one’s for you. It does not stifle your browsing experience by letting you switching back and forth with a feed manager.  All the reading material you need is on the same page where it should be.
  

There you go. Hope you liked it. Kindly drop a comment if you feel there’s something I’ve missed. I’ll be more than glad to re-edit my post anytime.

Aptera 2E – I Smell the Jetsons!

Similar to the size of a Honda Civic, Aptera Motors recently launched their latest brainchild – the Aptera 2E. Emulating the “car of the future” concept, this baby delivers the same speeds (if not faster) an ordinary automobile can. For a two-seater, the Aptera 2E gives comfort without sacrificing the space. As test-driven in Wired.com, this car can haul “three sets of golf clubs or 22 bags of groceries,” without plummeting either passenger or driver. The key features of this car are:

 

• Air conditioning and navigation system.
  
• Video camera with night vision.
  
• A knob on the dashboard that lets the driver adjust speeds to his preference, making up for the lack of transmission.
  
• Honeycomb composite material encloses the car. (Don’t worry, the alloy is six times stronger than steel.)
  
• Overnight charging with its 13-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery.
  
• A better drag with patented aerodynamics. (It’s very obvious.)
  
• The weight is concentrated on the front wheels for better traction and for pushing the wind aside when taking on higher speeds. (To make sure you don’t fly off with your car.)
  
• Up to 100 miles of electric mileage.

It’ll cost around $25,000 to $40,000 by year-end. Right now, it’s catching the public’s attention. Whether or not the recession will have its silver lining, more people are bound to get their hands on this gem of a car.