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.

Have Fun with Your Photos!

Ever felt so disgusted with that bland picture of yours? Do you want to give it a little twist here and bit of skewering there? In a span of 10 seconds, my friends, you could become a star in your own fantasy world with these delightful image editors. Try it out for yourself! Here are the links

Photofunia

Face Your Manga

Fun Photo Box

Loonapix

Picartia

YearBook Yourself

And let’s not forget…

MagMyPic

Don’t get too addictive with these online toys, alright?

Fringe - A Cool Sci-Fi TV Series from Fox

For all of you who aren’t in on the latest TV news, FOX had aired a sci-fi television program last year (and will air its season finale this May 12) that wreaked havoc in ratings in the US. The show is called Fringe. If you watched and got frustrated with Lost, J.J. Abrams assures you that this TV series is far from “WTF just happened?!”

Fringe is a show based on an FBI agent’s startling discoveries about phenomena relating to pseudo-science or fringe science. Fringe science is actually unexplainable events occurring throughout the world as we speak. Telepathy, Psychokinesis, Reanimation, and Teleportation are just some of the weird incidences they tackle here, and as the story progresses, they creepier the viewing experience. I’m sure everyone will like it as I did.

And no, guys – it’s not a rip-off from Supernatural or Eureka. This is definitely a worthwhile watch, and there’s no strict continuity in the plot. All episodes are more or less independent of the previous ones.

Facebook vs. Friendster (Go West, Go Facebook)

In a matter of months, Facebook will probably gain dominion in the Philippines, but I bet it already has.

Stemming from the incapability of Friendster to stop spam in both the messages and comments section, the social networking giant catering to mostly South East Asian countries is about to lose a majority of its faithful bystanders.

I’ve got to admit, since I migrated to Facebook, all has been too well for me. No spam, no annoying bot friend requests, and more importantly, no sick glitter comments. The plain but functionally-rich interface of Facebook is attracting subscribers and monetizing from it from their not-so-obnoxious ads.

A number of things I like about Facebook (which most users will agree with) are the games and quizzes. Yes, those seemingly plain games are what make the Facebook experience much more fun. The best part is that you get to share them with other people automatically (lest they remove you from their list of friend updates). True, Friendster has the bigger share at the moment, but sooner or later, people will end an era of spam and begin a fresh start with Facebook.

The Atomized Desktop Experience

This is our smallest processor built with the world's smallest transistors. The Intel® Atom™ processor is based on an entirely new design, built for low power and designed specifically for a new wave of Mobile Internet Devices and simple, low-cost PC's. This small wonder is a fundamental new shift in design, small yet powerful enough to enable a big Internet experience on these new devices. We believe it will unleash new innovation across the industry.

Withstanding the centralized attention the processor is garnering from the netbook industry, the infamous Intel Atom processor now marks its way into desktop computing. More and more PC manufacturers like Asus, Dell and HP are modifying and bundling their desktop packages with Intel Atom as the processor. Why? Because they believe that the processor shouldn’t only be restricted to miniature devices. With a good board and plenty of RAM, it can outdo a Pentium 4-powered PC. But don’t be shocked if these desktop packages don’t offer more juice than standard desktop packages – this is mainly because of the fact that the Atom processor was designed specifically only for low process-consuming applications like browsing and word processing. So if you’re running low on dough and just want to keep it simple, say like chatting and browsing, you’d better go for the Atom desktop packages – they’re worth every cent.

Entwined with the latest chip threading to assure optimal-if-not-fast performance and amazingly low power consumption, the Intel Atom processor is a good choice for the minimalist in you.

Also, as an eye-candy, the CPU casing is teeny enough to fit in your backpack.

Smart Bro-Ken?

Recently, I stumbled upon this post while Googling Smart Bro user opinions. In a fraction of a second, I came upon an interesting link leading me to a multitude of dissatisfied customer comments. I had to check it out because I was planning to put up a decent internet connection in my place. Sadly and wisely, I opted for another ISP (one with a better net reputation) after viewing all the hate comments. From what I read, I am NEVER turning to Smart Bro, even as my last resort.  

I do believe Smart Bro is doing everything it can to make its subscribers satisfied, but from the looks of things, I could say they’re ripping us off.

Go take a look-see at it for yourself. [link]

PSP-3000 Celebrates 7 Months of UNHACKABILITY

The PSP-3000 development team and Sony itself kept true to their statements of the PSP being an “unhackable device.” As of April 2008 (7 months after the pilot models were released), efforts to exploit the vulnerability of the PSP’s board and system have all failed, much to the glee of the entertainment company.  The homebrew community is still finding ways to outsmart to so-called “unhackable device.”

Notoriously popular in the PSP Homebrew Community are hackers/exploiters MaTiaZ and Dark-AleX, devising ways for homebrew and legacy games to bypass the PSP-3000’s system. In the meantime, rumors and hoaxes of firmware hacks have fluttered across the internet, but none of them spiteful enough to really crack the PSP’s system. The only thing left to do right now if you own one is buy a UMD, which costs roughly around Php 2000. 

Flash Set to Invade Your TV Sets

Adobe just keeps the innovations rolling -– and the market shares too.

Flash-based interactivity will find its way to American TV sets soon, as Adobe just launched a deal with major cable companies to bring web-based applications to greater media via chip-mod cable boxes. This deal, as most of you might chew over, will most probably boost multimedia functionality (including menu functions and viewing experience) and probably jumpstart product sales as knowingly, more and more advertisers will deliver juicier ads on people’s TV sets, further enticing them to bite the deal.

As for the Filipino people, we’re yet to see this awesome improvement hitting our sets in a couple more years. Hopefully, PC freaks like me will spend less time drooling on the keyboard and spend more time fondling the remote on flash-based games and applications when this lands in our country. The broadband connection here however, is still on its way to the third-world speed marker. What a shame.